THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE OF THE COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1066
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 16, 1979
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
HEARINGS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE
COMMITTEE ON
POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NINETY-SIXTH CONGRESS
H.;& 4674
JUNE 21, 28; JULY 9, 11, 17, 18, 24; SEPTEMBER 6, 7, 11, 19,
20, 27; AND OCTOBER 16, 1979
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
HEARINGS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE
COMMITTEE ON
POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NINETY-SIXTH CONGRESS
H.R. 4674
JUNE 21, 28; JULY 9, 11, 17, 18, 24; SEPTEMBER 6, 7, 11, 19,
20, 27; AND OCTOBER 16, 1979
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
62-083 0 WASHINGTON : 1980
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
CLEMENT J. ZABLOCKI, Wisconsin, Chairman
L. H. FOUNTAIN, North Carolina
DANTE B. FASCELL, Florida
CHARLES C. DIGGS, JR., Michigan
BENJAMIN S. ROSENTHAL, New York
LEE H. HAMILTON, Indiana
LESTER L. WOLFF, New York
JONATHAN B. BINGHAM, New York
GUS YATRON, Pennsylvania
CARDISS COLLINS, Illinois
STEPHEN J. SOLARZ, New York
DON BONKER, Washington
GERRY E. STUDDS, Massachusetts
ANDY IRELAND, Florida
DONALD J. PEASE, Ohio
DAN MICA, Florida
MICHAEL D. BARNES, Maryland
WILLIAM H. GRAY III, Pennsylvania
TONY P. HALL, Ohio
HOWARD WOLPE, Michigan
DAVID R. BOWEN, Mississippi
FLOY1J J..FITHIAN, Indiana
WILLIAM S. BROOMFIELD, Michigan
EDWARD J. DERWINSKI, Illinois
rAUL FINDLEY, Illinois
JOHN H. BUCHANAN, JR., Alabama
LARRY WINN, JR., Kansas
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
TENNYSON GUYER, Ohio
ROBERT J. LAGOMARSINO, California
WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania
JOEL PRITCHARD, Washington
MILLICENT FENWICK, New Jersey
DAN QUAYLE, Indiana
JOHN J. BRADY, Jr., Chief of Staff
SUSAN MCCARTAN, Stqff Assistant
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
DANTE B. FASCELL, Florida, Chairman
ANDY IRELAND, Florida JOHN H. BUCHANAN, JR., Alabama
DAN MICA, Florida EDWARD J. DERWINSKI, Illinois
WILLIAM H. GRAY III, Pennsylvania JOEL PRITCHARD, Washington
DAVID R. BOWEN, Mississippi
R. MICHAEL FINLEY, Subcommittee Staff Director
JANEAN L. MANN, Minority Staff Consultant
VIRGINIA SCHLUNDT, Subcommittee Stdff Associate
KAREN BRENNAN, Subcommittee Staff Associate
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE
JAMES M. HANLEY, New York, Chairman
MORRIS K. UDALL, Arizona, Vice Chairman
CHARLES H. WILSON, California EDWARD J. DERWINSKI, Illinois
WILLIAM D. FORD, Michigan
WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY, Missouri
PATRICIA SCHROEDER, Colorado
GLADYS NOON SPELLMAN, Maryland
HERBERT E. HARRIS II, Virginia
ROBERT GARCIA, New York
GEORGE THOMAS (MICKEY) LELAND.
Texas
GERALDINE A. FERRARO, New York
CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas
DONALD JOSEPH ALBOSTA, Michigan
JOHN J. CAVANAUGH, Nebraska
GUS YATRON. Pennsylvania
MARY ROSE OAKAR, Ohio
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
JIM LEACH, Iowa
TOM CORCORAN, Illinois
JAMES A. COURTER, New Jersey
CHARLES PASHAYAN, JR., California
WILLIAM E. DANNEMEYER, California
DANIEL B. CRANE, Illinois
DAVID MINTON, Executive Director and General Counsel
THEODORE J. KAZY, Minority Staff Director
ROBERT E. LOCKHART, Deputy General Counsel
J. PIERCE MYERS, Assistant General Counsel
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE
PATRICIA SCHROEDER, Colorado, Chairwoman
MORRIS K. UDALL, Arizona JIM LEACH, Iowa
HERBERT E. HARRIS II, Virginia GENE TAYLOR, Missouri
WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY, Missouri CHARLES PASHAYAN, JR., California
GUS YATRON, Pennsylvania JAMES A. COURTER, New Jersey
ANDREW FEINSTEIN, Subcommittee Staff Director
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CONTENTS
Tuesday, June 21, 1979: Page
Hon. Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of State-------------------------- 2
Hon. Ben H. Read, Under Secretary of State for Management------ 9
Hon. Harry Barnes, Director General of the Foreign Service-------- 22
James H. Michel, Deputy Legal Adviser, Department of State------- 32
Thursday, June 28, 1979:
Hon. John E. Reinhardt, Director, International Communication
Agency ------------------------------------------------------- 57
Robert H. Nooter, Acting Administrator, Agency for International
Development -------------------------------------------------- 71
Richard W. Parsons, Deputy Director, Office of Personnel Manage-
ment, Agency for International Development-------------------- 81
Monday, July 9, 1979:
Steven Koczak, special projects assistant to the national president,
American Federation of Government Employees------------------ 85
Lars Hydle. president, American Foreign Service Association------- 123
Kenneth Bleakley, president-elect, American Foreign Service Asso-
ciation -------------------------------------------------------- 142
Robert Stern, member of the governing board, American Foreign
Service Association------------------------------------------- 147
Catherine Waelder, legal counsel, American Foreign Service Associa-
tion ---------------------------------------------------------- 148
Wednesday, July 11, 1979: Hon. Ben H. Read, Under Secretary of State for
Management ------------------------------------------------------- 163
Tuesday, July 17, 1979:
Hon. Claude Pepper, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Florida ------------------------------------------------------- 195
Joseph Glazer, International Communication Agency--------------- 199
Hon. Alan K. Campbell, Director, Office of Personnel Management--- 202
Hon. Robert G. Neumann, senior associate, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Georgetown University-------------------- 219
Wednesday, July 18, 1979:
Marguerite Cooper King, vice president for the State Department for
the Women's Action Organization------------------------------- 243
Hon. Ben H. Read, Under Secretary of State for Management------- 271
Tuesday, July 24, 1979:
Lesley Dorman, president, Association of American Foreign Service
Women ----------------------- --- 296
Marcia Curran, Forum Committee on Employment, Association of
American Foreign Service Women---------------- --- 299
Patricia Ryan, Forum Committee on Retirement, Association of
American Foreign Service Women------------------------------- 304
Elizabeth Sherman Thurston, Association of American Foreign Serv-
ice Women--------- -------------- 307
----------------------------
Thursday, September 6, 1979:
Jos4 Armilla, vice president, foreign affairs chapter, Asian and Pa-
cific Americans Federal Employees Council---------------------- 325
William C. Harrop, Senior Foreign Service officer and former president
of the American Foreign Service Association--------------------- 334
Cynthia Thomas, Foreign Service Reserve Officer, Department of
State --------------------------------------------------------- 383
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Friday, September 7, 1979: Hon. Martin F. Herz, former U.S. Ambassador Page
to Bulgaria ------------------------------------------------------- 393
Tuesday, September 11, 1979:
Janet Lloyd, Director, Family Liaison Office, Department of State___ 411
Hon. Ben H. Read, Under Secretary for Management, Department of
State --------------------------------------------------------- 419
Wednesday, September 19, 1979: Hon. Henry A. Kissinger, former Secre-
tary of State------------------------------------------------------ 446
Thursday, September 20, 1979:
Hon. George Ball, former Under Secretary of State________________ 487
Richard I. Bloch, Chairman, Foreign Service Grievance Board ------- 494
James R. Washington, president, Thursday Luncheon Group________ 508
David Smith, vice president, Thursday Luncheon Group____________ 516
James Singletary, Foreign Service officer, Agency for International
Development --------------------------------------------------- 520
Thursday, September 27, 1979:
Patrick E. Linehan, senior research analyst, Defense Intelligence
Agency ------------------------------------------------------- 525
Robert S. Gershenson, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Person-
nel, Department of State________________________________________ 537
Kenneth Bleakley, president, American Foreign Service Association__ 556
Hon. Ben H. Read, Under Secretary of State for Management---___ 580
Tuesday, October 16, 1979; Richard F. Celeste, Director, Peace Corps____ 599
MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Numerical summary of minority representation in the Foreign Service____ 24
Summary of the financial status of the Foreign Service Retirement and
Disability Fund---------------------------------------------------- 32
Comparison of the Obey regulations with the provisions of proposed For-
eign Service Act of 1979____________________________________________ 77
Summary of the personnel authorities for the International Development
and Cooperation Agency and the Agency for International Development_ 80
Statement of Kenneth T. Blaylock, national president, American Federa-
tion of Government Employees______________________________________ 89
Section-by-section analysis of the Foreign Service Act by the American
Foreign Service Association_________________________________________ 125
Statement by the American Foreign Service Association on pay compara-
bility for the U.S. Foreign Service___________________________________ 143
Legal basis for the functions of U.S. consular officers abroad______________ 179
Figures representing the rate of selection-out of Foreign Service officers
for inefficiency in the Foreign Service______________________________ 206
Office of Personnel Management views on providing employment for spouses
of Foreign Service officers stationed overseas________________________ 206
Office of Personnel Management views on noncompetitive appointment to
the civil service for former Peace Corps staff_______________________ 214
Letters submitted for the record from the Women's Action Organization to
its State Department employees on equal employment opportunities---- 256
Letter from Hon. Loy W. Henderson, former Under Secretary for Admin-
istration, Department of State, presenting views on the earned rights of
Foreign Service spouses____________________________________________ 298
Table listing middle and upper employment of Asian Americans in State,
AID, and USICA--------------------------------------------------- 327
Amendments proposed by the ASIAN and Pacific Americans Federal Em-
ployees Council to implement equal employment opportunity principles__ 330
Statement by Hon. Jim Leach, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Iowa, on testimony by Lannon Walker and William Harrop__________ 333
Questions submitted in writing to Messrs. Harrop and Walker and re-
sponses thereto---------------------------------------------------- 375
Article by Hon. George F. Kerman, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union,
entitled, "Foreign Policy and the Professional Diplomat"______________ 399
Excerpt from an interview with George F. Kennan, by John F. Campbell
in the Foreign Service Journal, August 1970__________________________ 400
Article by Hon. George Ball, former Under Secretary of State, reprinted
from the Washington Post, entitled, "Showbiz Diplomacy"_____________ 408
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Memorandum from Nancy V. Rawls, Acting Director of Personnel, Depart-
ment of St
t
t
H
a
e
o
on Ben H Read Und St f M
,..,erecrearyoranagement,
Department of State, on the Foreign Service Structure: Modification of Page
the FSO Cone System__________________
----------------
--
______
______
----------------------------- 421
Statement submitted by the Department of State on the need for continua-
ti
on of mandatory retiet i th Fi
rmenneoregn Service of the United
States -------------------------------
-
29
-
4
--- Letter from Hon. Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of State, on the need for the
continuation of mandatory retirement in the Foreign Service of the
United States---------------------------
--
Article by Marlise Simons, reprinted from the Washington Post, entitled,
Statements of Hon. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, on the
"U
O
"
p or
ut
principle mandatotit
,ry reremen, and noncareer appoint-
ments in the Foreign Service_________
4
_____
56
___ Statement of Hon. Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State, on
e
ual
l
q
emp
oyment opportunity andffititi i
armave aconn the Foreign
Service -----------------------------
-------
-----------------------
of Hon. Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State on the 461
Chart detailing point values for job content for various positions within Yv1,
Chart assigning percentage values for job content for
----------------------------------
positions within
Chart assigning accountability values for various positions within the
Foreign ry-------
Chart listing rank order of various positions within the Foreign Service__ 543
_--
---------------------------------- 545
Comparison of
pay levels among the Foreign Service and civil service and
Chart listing options for possible implementation of the Hay Associates
UYo
Updated, section-by-section analysis of the Foreign Service Act by the
- -_____n
5
--------
57
---------------------- Letter from Richard Celeste concerning the impact of noncompetitive
i
il
i
c
v
serv
ce eligibility for Peace Corps staff--------------------------- 811
APPENDIXES
1. Questions submitted in writing to Hon. John Reinhardt, Director,
l C,.-.,.
..----`--- -- '
Intern
ti
m
a
ona
_ 2. Annex 1 to the statement of Kenneth T!. Blaylock,
.. national president
.-.
011,.. r..--- `?
----
f
o
3. Report of the Forum of the Association of American Foreign Service
4. Report of the Association of Foreign Service Women to the Secretary
__
_ -------
5. Time use survey submitted by the Association of American Foreign
----------------------------
6. Letter from Jose Armilla, vice president of the Foreign Affairs Chapter, iv
Asian a
d P
ifi
A
n
ac
c
merican Federal El Cilli
mpoyeeounc, encosng
an annex to his testimony of September 6
1979
,
-----------------
7. 8
Letter from Robert L. Berra, vice president for personnel, Monsanto
C
t
o
o on Dante B Fsllhi Sbi
.,..ace, carman,ucommttee on Inter-
national Operations, giving a critique of the proposed legislation to
restructure the Foreign Service personnel system_________________ 772
Statement of Hon. James T. Broyhill, a Representative in Congress
from the State of North Carolina, on the Foreign Service Act of 1979_ 774
Statement of Louis Clark, Director, and Deborah K. Burand, of the
Government Accountability Project, Institute for Policy Studies__ 776
Letter and statement of Brewster C. Denny, dean, Graduate School of
Public Affairs, University of Washington, commenting on H.R.
4674, the Foreign Service Act of 1979___________________________ 786
Letter from Robert S. Folsom, Foreign Service officer, retired, to
Virginia Schlundt, counsel, Subcommittee on International Opera-
tions,-concerning the Foreign Service reorganization bill ----------- 793
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12. Letter from Hon. Martin F. Herz, former U.S. Ambassador to Bul- Page
garia, to Virginia Schlundt, counsel, Subcommittee on International
Operations, elaborating on his testimony before the subcommittee- 795
13. Statement of Miriam Chrisler Hilliker, Office of Legislative Affairs,
Women's Division, Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist
Church, on H.R.2857---------------------------------------- 798
14. Letter from Roger W. Jones, chairman, National Academy of Public
Administration, Washington, D.C., to Hon. Dante B. Fascell,
chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations, stating
views on the proposed reorganization of the Foreign Service------ 800
15. Letter from Robert D. Krause, president, International Personnel
Management Association, Washington, D.C., to Hon. Dante B.
Fascell, chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations,
expressing views on proposed restructuring of the Foreign Service-- 807
16. Statement of C. A. McKinney, director of Government affairs, Na-
tional Capital Office, Noncommissioned Officers Association of the 811
United States----------------------------
17. Letter from Rufus E. Miles, Jr., Senior Fellow, the Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University to
Hon. Dante B. Fascell, chairman, Subcommittee on International 812
Operations, giving a critique of H.R. 4674---------------------
18. Statement of Donald H. Schwab, director, National Legislative Service,
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, with respect to pend-
ing legislation to apportion annuities of Foreign Service officers---- 814
19. Statement of John P. Shelley, executive vice president, National 817
Uniformed Services, on H.R. 2857----------------------------
20. Letter from Hon. Elmer B. Staats, Comptroller General of the United
States to Hon. Dante B. Fascell, chairman, Subcommittee on Inter-
national Operations, analyzing proposed legislation to reform the 820
Foreign Service personnel system------------------------
21. Statement of Bernard Wiesman, president of the Foreign Affairs
Employees Council, American Federation of Government Em-
ployees, on the proposed rewriting of the Foreign Service Act------ 828
22. "A Profile of Women in AID", submitted by the Women's Action 846
Organization-----------
23. Comparison of labor law provisions in civil service law and labor law
provisions in the proposed .Foreign Service Act, by staff 862
of the Subcommittee on Civil Service ---------------------------
24. Statement of the Women's Equity Action League, on H.R. 2857, the
Foreign Service Retirement Income Equity Act------------------ 868
25. Questions submitted in writing to the Federation of Government 870
Employees and responses thereto------------------------------
26. Questions submitted in writing to the Department of State and 888
responses thereto--------------------------------------------
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 9:40 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Dante B. Fascell (chairman of the Subcommit-
tee on International Operations) presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. Today the Subcommittees on International Operations
and on Civil Service initiate a series of hearings on a proposal by the
administration to reform the Foreign Service personnel system of the
Department of State, the International Communication Agency and
the Agency for International Development.
I must say this has been a long time in coming but I want to con-
gratulate the Secretary of State and Secretary Read for their diligence
in persevering with a problem that has too often been relegated to the
bottom of the heap because nobody wanted to deal with it. The Secre-
tary has made good on his longstanding commitment to give attention
to this matter.
I am delighted that we are having these joint hearings with the Sub-
committee on Civil Service. On behalf of the Subcommittee on Inter-
national Operations, I welcome my cochairman, Hon. Pat Schroeder,
and the members of her subcommittee.
Pat.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you, Dante. I am pleased that our commit-
tees are having these joint hearings. I think that the cross-fertilization
of our personnel law perspective with yours on foreign affairs will
result in meaningful and responsible consideration of the legislation.
I particularly am pleased to be cochairing this with my good friend,
Dante Fascell.
Mr. Secretary, I welcome you and I wonder where you find the time
just 3 days after the signing of SALT in Vienna to update the Foreign
Service. We are delighted to do this jointly to try and conserve your
energy and everyone else's.
I want to raise at the very beginning some questions that we are
going Jo have about the Foreign Service before we go full speed ahead
to fix it. I think a lot of people want to know what's broken and why
this legislation is really needed and why we are doing this at this time.
(1)
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The Foreign Service selects new officers under procedures which are
loose and changeable. This concerns me very much and I wonder if this
selection procedure is valid. I have a feeling sometimes that it screens
out disproportinate numbers of women, blacks, and Hispanics.
Promotion in the Foreign Service is often done on a collegiate basis
and I often wonder if this is an effective system of peer rating or is it
really the old-boy Princetonian network as we know and love it.
Are adequate provisions made for spouses of Foreign Service offi-
cers? My heart goes out to Jane Dubs who was left penniless after her
former husband was tragically assassinated in Afghanistan. I am con-
cerned about whether this legislation goes far enough in dealing with
cases such as hers.
Is there adequate protection for employees in the Foreign Service ?
I am talking about the protection of the right to organize and bargain
collectively, the protection of the right not to be subject to arbitrary
dismissal, the protection of the right to register dissent.
I think those are all very important. We have just finished doing
some major civil service reform in our committee. I am not sure this
legislation goes as far as what we have done. I think we are going to
want to go that far unless you give us many really good reasons why
we should not.
I have some other things. I just thought to save time I would point
out some of the things I am really going to focus on. Again I thank you
for appearing and being here this morning.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Secretary, I think there are some questions left, I
am not sure, but I will work on that as we go along. I think that Mrs.
Schroeder has put her finger on some major problems of concern.
We basically are all interested in doing one thing and that is to make
certain, as President Eisenhower once said, that the State Depart-
ment and the people who serve in the Foreign Service should be of
the highest moral character and we should do everything that we can
to insure that their morale is high, so that they perform their best.
We want to get and keep qualified people because the Service is so
demanding. Therefore, this effort, while it might be boring for some,
is going to be very important for a lot of people and for the Govern-
ment and for the country, so we will just go at it step by step.
Mr. Secretary, I know that you have a prepared statement so you
may proceed.
OZ. CYRUS R. VANOE, SECRETARY OF STATE
Secretary VANcE. Thank you very much. First I would like to ex-
press my great appreciation to the chairperson for the early scheduling
of these hearings on the proposed new Foreign Service Act to which
I and all of us in the Department attach such great importance.
No one has a more profound appreciation of the necessity for a vital
Foreign Service, and no one has a deeper personal obligation than I
to maintain its vitality. From my tenure as Secretary of State and
earlier Government experience, I know that the country and its lead-
ers depend upon a strong and vigorous Foreign Service. And I believe
a strong Foreign Service needs this act.
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The Rogers Act of 1924 which created the modern Foreign Service,
and the Foreign Service Act of 1946, which established its present
form, were landmarks in their time. They served us well.
The 1946 act created the personnel system which now supplies three-
fourths of our Ambassadors. This administration, as have all admin-
istrations since World War II, depends on it for the people who rep-
resent our international interests-from the most sensitive missions
down to the simplest, yet essential, day-to-day tasks.
But times have changed since 1946. We must be sensitive to the
shifts which have taken place in the environment that affect the
Foreign Service career, and we must look ahead to the challenges our
Foreign Service will face in the future.
Diplomacy has always been a risky business. From the days of Ben-
jamin Franklin and the Committees of Correspondence, our diplo-
mats have quite literally risked their lives in the service of their
country.
At no time since 1946 has service been more difficult than it is in so
many posts today, or as dangerous-as the senseless deaths of able
officers in the last few years tragically demonstrate.
The 1946 act gave us a Foreign Service that answered the demands
of that day. But today's circumstances are significantly changed. The
number of independent governments has more than doubled during
that period and the range of multilateral institutions and efforts in
which we are engaged has grown enormously.
Our international commerce has vastly expanded and the interna-
tional dimension of economic issues has become increasingly central.
Major new areas of concern such as nuclear nonproliferation, narcotics
control, environmental protection, and science and technology have
emerged.
And new emphasis has been given to traditional concerns of Ameri-
can foreign policy such as the advancement of human rights. Ameri-
cans are traveling abroad in record numbers, with a commensurate
increase in the demands for consular services.
The Foreign Service has had to respond to these increasing demands
with roughly the same number of people as it had 20 years ago.
At the same time, personnel management is influenced now in ways
that were hardly foreseen in 1946. Formal employee-management re-
lationships only emerged in the Senate Department within the last 10
years.
A change has also taken place in the perceived advantages of over-
seas service. The quality of life in many foreign capitals has dete-
riorated while the threat to personal safety has increased. The declin-
ing value of the dollar and high inflation in many nations have made
our task more difficult.
Moreover, with a growing number of families in which both spouses
are pursuing professional careers, there is understandable increasing
family reluctance to leave the United States for foreign posts.
All these developments underscore the obvious fact that the For-
eign Service is confronted by dramatically different circumstances
than prevailed a third of a century ago. The Service must adapt to
these new conditions if it is to meet new responsibilities, now and in
the years ahead.
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And yet the structure of the Service has not kept pace. Obsolete,
cumbersome, and frequently anomalous organizational arrangements
and personnel distinctions have tended to sap its traditional strength
and hinder its performance.
We need a personnel system which takes account of new realities. We
need the discipline and the incentives that will preserve, strengthen,
and prepare our Foreign Service for the complex challenges ahead.
The Civil Service Reform Act passed by the Congress last year
strengthens and modernizes the conditions of employment as well as
the management efficiency of the Civil Service in all departments and
agencies, including the Department of State and the foreign affairs
agencies.
In recognition of the fundamentally different mission and condi-
tions of the Foreign Service, it was exempted from many of the basic
provisions of that act.
This has given us a rare opportunity to draw from the features of
the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act where they are adaptable to the
unique requirements of the Foreign Service.
The bill we are proposing for your consideration today is directly
responsive to a 1976 congressional request calling on the Department
to submit a "comprehensive plan" to improve and simplify our per-
sonnel arrangements.
The proposal represents 3 years of study, suspended only during
congressional consideration of the civil service legislation last year,
but resumed and intensified during the last 7 months. It represents
extensive consultation within the executive branch and with interested
members and staff on the Hill.
I have devoted many hours to this process and I am confident that
we are submitting a bill which will substantially strengthen the
Foreign Service.
Let me summarize the major features of the bill.
First and foremost, it links the granting of career tenure promo-
tions, compensation and incentive pay, as well as retention in the
Service more closely to the quality of performance.
The bill would require all persons seeking career status to pass a
rigorous testing process before being awarded such status.
It restores an effective "up or out" policy essential to attracting
and keeping the most qualified people and assuring them the oppor-
tunity to move through the ranks at a rate which reflects their ability.
Some procedures, such as selection out for substandard perform-
ance, would be applicable for the first time to all Foreign Service per-
sonnel from highest to lowest ranks.
Other procedures, such as limited career extensions for persons at
the highest ranks of their occupational categories, are new. They would
be administered on the recommendations of annual selection boards
and would provide greater flexibility in assuring that the Service re-
tains the ablest people and the essential skills it needs.
Present voluntary and mandatory retirement features, both essen-
tial for an effective Service, are retained without change.
The bill would create a new Senior Foreign Service, with rigorous
new entry criteria for the highest three ranks. Membership in the
Senior Foreign Service would involve greater benefits and risks based
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on performance. With adaptations, the incentive provisions are
modeled on the senior executive service provisions of the 1978 law.
Second, the bill recognizes the clear distinction between the For-
eign Service and the Civil Service. It clearly limits Foreign Service
career status only to those people who accept the discipline of serv-
ice overseas.
Today, there are several hundred members of the Foreign Service
in the Department alone who have entered the Service without any
real expectation that they would have to serve abroad, and who have
not served abroad. The bill would convert these persons to civil service
or senior executive service status, with pay and benefits preserved.
Third, it improves the management and efficiency of the Service by
reducing the number of personnel categories for more than a dozen
to two. There would be a single pay scale for ' both. In general, our
personnel laws would be consolidated, rationalized, and codified to
meet current needs.
Fourth, it places employee-management relations on a firmer and
more equitable statutory basis, establishing a new Foreign Service
Labor Relations Board and a Foreign Service Impasse Disputes
Panel.
Fifth, it would underscore our commitments to mitigating the
special hardships and strains on Foreign Service families, and to
advancing equal employment opportunity and fair and equitable
treatment for all without regard to race, national origin, sex, handi-
cap, or other considerations.
Sixth, it would improve the economy and efficiency of Government
by promoting maximum compatibility and interchange among the
agencies authorized to use Foreign Service personnel. It would also
foster greater compatibility between the Foreign Service and the
Civil Service.
There are many other features of this bill which will be described
in more detail by others who follow me, including USICA Director
Reinhardt and Acting AID Director Robert Nooter.
The mission of the Foreign Service in the years ahead will be com-
plex and difficult. It will face great demands, both physical and
emotional.
But freed by this new proposed charter from the organizational
obstacles to which I have alluded, I am confident that it will be able
to do its essential work for the Nation with distinction. For the vast
majority of its members at all levels are people of uncommon profes-
sional ability, experience, and dedication.
I know you share my view that the country needs a strong For-
eign Service. I believe that when you have completed your examina-
tion of this proposed legislation, you will share my view that a strong
Foreign Service needs this act.
Thank you.
Mr. FnscELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Secretary, how much of this could be done, if any, through
purely administrative action?
Secretary VANCE. Some of it could be done by administrative re-
form, but I believe that extensive legislation is required and not just
administrative reform. I say that because I think legislation is neces-
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sary in order to do a number of things, and let me list what they are.
First, to affirm authoritatively the essential contemporary role of
the Foreign Service.
Second, to convert to civil service status without the loss of bene-
fits Foreign Service personnel in the State Department and in USICA
who are obligated and needed only for domestic service.
Third, to place employee-management relations on a statutory
basis.
Fourth, to create a Senior Foreign Service with rigorous promotion
and retention standards which will be closely related to performance
with appropriate linkages to the Senior Executive Service and with
similar risks and benefits, including performance pay.
Fifth, to create a single Foreign Service pay scale.
Sixth, to combine more than a dozen Foreign Service personnel
categories and subcategories into categories of two.
Seventh, to provide similar requirements for providing tenure, pro-
motions based on merit principles, and selection out for substandard
performance for all members of the Service from top to bottom.
And eighth, to recodify and consolidate major personnel legislation
relating to the Foreign Service.
For all of those reasons I believe that a comprehensive bill such as
this is required.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, may I suggest another reason. If you try this
without the Congress, you would probably be in trouble anyway.
Secretary VANCE. I am sure that is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much.
I have many many questions and I never know quite where to begin
but let me start with one of my pet projects. First of all I want to
compliment you in allowing spouses to work in embassies abroad, but
in the interim, as you know, we went through a whole period where
one's career was based on how one's spouse performed. Spouses got
report cards and if they earned their own jobs, the careers of their
spouses would be jeopardized.
So I* have introduced an annuity bill. My understanding is that the
State Department did not see fit to go that far and I was wondering
what your position was on the annuity rights bill that I have intro-
duced?
Secretary VANCE. This is a very important matter and one which
has been a matter of deep concern to me. This bill acknowledges that
the direct contribution made by Foreign' Service spouses should give
them a vested right in a survivor annuity after 10 years of accom-
panying their spouse. In this regard the bill specifically provides that
there can be no waiver without the express consent of the spouse under
those circumstances. I think this is of fundamental importance.
Mrs. ScHROEDER. And you are not insisting on a court order first for
that to take place?
Secretary VANCE. That is correct.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Women, blacks, and Hispanics. I asked your AID
colleague in my committee about equal employment opportunities in
the Foreign Service and was told that they didn't like to travel.
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Secretary VANCE. I think that we have not done an adequate job in
this area which is very obvious from any scrutiny of the personnel
records in the Department. As a result of that, one of the principal
tasks that I and my colleagues undertook when I became Secretary
of State was to establish a review panel to .take a look at the affirmative
action programs of the Department and to come up with a specific
program for putting into effect a strong affirmative action program.
That has been done.
We have been having regular followup meetings with the affirmative
action task force to check on the progress that is being made. I think
that at a number of levels we are making good progress. In some we are
not making adequate progress, and it is something that we simply
are not going to tolerate. We are going to insist that the programs be
carried out and be carried out effectively.
I am not satisfied with the progress yet, but we are on the right
track and our people are wholeheartedly behind it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think one of my problems has been why the
Foreign Service relies so much on promotions being decided by the
selection boards. It seems to me that it is similar to the military. It is
very difficult to crank out that old-boys network which I think people
are not even aware of a lot of times. It is kind of a cultural condition-
ing. There are a lot of things that you cannot just objectively analyze.
It is a subjective thing. That worries me here because I don't see us
breaking away from that kind of collegial board and those kinds of
problems.
So if you want to furnish affirmative action, you may have to say
"no" to some of your boards. Yet, presumably, the boards are the au-
thentic way and there is no way to measure whether or not the board
is biased.
Secretary VANCE. Let me answer by giving you several different
points. First, I felt it was essential that we should include in this bill
which is before you, a. legislative statement of our goal with respect to
affirmative action and the importance of affirmative action, so it is
specifically stated in this bill that one of its objectives is to foster the
development of policies and procedures which will facilitate and en-
courage entry into and advancement in the Foreign Service by persons
from all segments of the American society with equal opportunity and
fair and equitable treatment for all without regard to national origin,
race, sex, marital status or handicapping condition. I think it is impor-
tant for the Congress to put its stamp on this, too, and to say this is a
fundamental principle that guides us.
Now in connection with the implementation of that fundamental
concept which is stated in this legislation, we have made it very clear
and we make it clear in the precepts to the selection panels that
this is an important factor that should be taken into account. When
it comes to appointments to deputy assistant secretaries, for exam-
ple, I have charged those who come with recommendations to
me to make sure that on those lists there is a broad representation of
not only minorities but women as well, so that when we make the
selection I am sure that we have before us across-the-board repre-
sentatives and not just people who are known to their colleagues.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you agree with President Carter's statement
that our embassies abroad are overstaffed?
Secretary VANCE. Insofar as the State Department is concerned,
we now have it pared down to what I think is really the minimum. We
are operating with the same number of personnel that we did some 20
years ago, and this despite the facts that the problems which we face
are much more complex and that we have so many more countries to
deal with than we did in the past.
If you are talking about the total number of people who are carried
in the mission in a country. yes. I think they are still overstaffed, but
that is because we have elements from many other different agencies
and departments which are included in the total mission.
We have been going through a review during the last year in which
we have been trying to cut down and we have cut down on the numbers.
We have not cut sufficiently and we are going to continue to prune and
reduce the size.
Actually, Ben points out to me that the State Department consti-
tutes less than 20 percent of personnel contained in the average
embassy.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think some of the main problems our committee is
going to have with this legislation, in all candor, are : We feel very
strongly that part of the whole reform of the Federal Government is to
bring in the notion of pay for performance. Yet, it appears that you
have discarded the notion of merit pay for upper level Foreign Service
officers.
The SES model has not really been followed in the same way.
There is also some question as to why you need another group, why
you can't rely on the FLRA for your labor-management system. Why
do we have to create a new one?
There is some concern about whether or not the employee protections
that have been extended to the Civil Service through the Office of Spe-
cial Counsel can be utilized also in the Foreign Service. Since we are
using title VII in the Panamanian legislation and title VII for all
civil service employees in the continental United States, why is title
VII not also adequate to pick up and superimpose on the Foreign
Service?
I realize these are all very complex and we probably can't answer
them here, but I think there are things that we are going to be really
fine tuning and asking as we go through this legislation. I think it
would be less than fair if I didn't point that out.
I think we are also concerned to find out whether or not you think
that Foreign Service officers are underpaid.
Whether or not we are really doing anything in this legislation for
the Consular Corps which has been of great concern.
Now there are other people wanting to ask questions but that is
where we are coming from.
Secretary VANCE. We are prepared to answer all of those questions.
I do want to comment on the first point you made because I have
made a very difficult decision which I made myself on whether or not
to include merit pay for the younger officers.
I support very strongly performance pay for those who will be in
the Senior Foreign Service. I think that that is an excellent idea.
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However, when I took a close look at the question of merit pay at the
middle levels, and I discussed this with many, many midlevel and
junior officers and I discussed it with senior officers as well, I was con-
vinced that there is a clear distinction between those at that level
being awarded merit pay in lieu of step increases and those being
awarded performance pay at the higher level.
Why? Let me give you two of the reasons. In the first place, I think
it is much more difficult at that point to be able to select in terms of
monetary compensation pay which would be meaningful to one mid-
level officer as against another.
Second, there is a grave concern that if this is done, the net result
will be that there will not be the usual salary increases to compensate
for cost-of-living increases and that the Congress will simply not
permit that to go forward. The result is that the people in those grades
are going to be hurt rather than helped.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I want to welcome you to the committee and I am
sure you understand the importance of this legislation. I happen to
believe that with all its deficiencies we already have the finest For-
eign Service in the world and it is my hope whatever we do here will
serve to strengthen and not confuse that situation.
I begin, Mr. Secretary, by associating myself with the concerns of
the gentlewoman from Colorado pertaining to affirmative action and
its importance throughout the Government. Then second, section 333
entitled "Family Member of Government Employees," contains a
somewhat watered down version of the language that already passed
in this area. As you know, we had expressed some concern about the
resources that were available among family members of Foreign Serv-
ice officers that we were not utilizing. Now a good many talented peo-
ple might well serve our country and it is my understanding you
decided to try the program on an experimental basis in 15 posts. It
is my further understanding that although some 15 to 20 jobs were
originally identified as jobs suitable under the program, by the time
the regulations were sent to the post last month, some 9 months after
they were enacted, there was only one job open and it was not sure
even a family member will get that. So it seems to me this is not a good
pilot.
I wanted to ask if there can't be further action toward implementa-
tion. I am pleased this section is in the bill, but I wonder if there can't
be some more substantial implementation of the present law. Even
on a pilot basis it seems this is pretty high.
Secretary VANCE. First let me say that I do not consider section 333
to be a watering down, I think it reflects the current law.
As to the details of some of the matters that you have raised, Mr.
Buchanan, I would like to ask Ben Read to comment on them.
STATEMENT OF HON. BEN H. READ, UNDER SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR MANAGEMENT
Mr.. READ. As you know, Mr. Buchanan, we do have a very limited
pilot- program underway. I agree with you that we can get more life
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and steam into it, and I will be glad to report on the progress made
and the intent to carry it out beyond its current status at a suitable
time.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I just think if we have some of the people who are
not U.S. nationals-and we do have some really talented people we are
not using-I think it might be good for everybody if we could have a
stronger use and a stronger attempt perhaps to reach out to those
people and use those facilities.
I have no further questions at this time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We appreciate your coming up here to the Hill, Mr. Secretary,
when you are under so many problems these days.
Let me just say that as a basic philosophy I would hope that Con-
gress in this type of an area would say how do you want to run this
thing and if it is within reason we say OK go ahead and then we keep
your feet to the fire and judge you on results.
Mr. FASCELL. Oh, that is too easy.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I am all for that, it is better management, but it is
very difficult for Congress to operate in a management approach so
we do get into a lot of nitpicking.
On a matter of policy I have a couple of questions.
We all know how important morale is to the small Foreign Service
Officer Corps and the significance of maintaining a separate identity
and role for our diplomats. Now does the new Foreign Service Act
tend to blur the identity of the new FSO Corps within the larger Gov-
ernment personnel system and if true, would this not have a negative
impact on Foreign Service morale f
Secretary VANCE. If that were the fact, it would. In my judgment it
does not. It does the contrary. I think it reaffirms the importance of
the Foreign Service and of excellence in the Foreign Service and it
takes the necessary steps to make sure that that in fact is what is going
to be carried out.
I think it strengthens rather than derogates from the Foreign Serv-
ice and the personnel within the Foreign Service, and I think that
as a result of the passage of this act we will have a stronger Foreign
Service.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I understand that you want Congress to complete
consideration of the Foreign Service Act this year. What timeframe do
you envision and will the State Department be ready with the ma-
chinery to implement such a mass of complex procedures and regula-
tions once the proposal becomes law? What is your timetable here?
Secretary VANCE. The answer to your first question is "yes," we are
prepared to and will be able to implement when the Congress acts on
this. I hope very much that the Congress will act this year and if they
do, then we are prepared to implement.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Would you say that it is very important that we act
this year?
Secretary VANCE. I think it is very important that you act this
year.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Thank vou. I would agree with you. I am concerned
about what I feel is an attitude of pushing this and pushing it down.
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Secretary VAr CE. Well, orre of the reasons I wanted to come up and
testify today even though it is just a couple of days after I got back
from Vienna and I have to testify or appear at the OAS meeting this
afternoon with the Foreign Ministers is because I consider this to be of
fundamental importance to our Foreign Service. The sooner we get
at it and get this
to be. legislation passed, the better off all of us are going
Mr. PxrTCHARD. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. I must say at this point that the Secretary
has to my knowledge devoted a great deal of his time to this matter,
not only in reviewing the legislation but in the intensive work that
went on for a long time within the administration.
Now this is not a matter that has been delegated to very able people
like Ben Read and others. This is something that the Secretary himself
has interested himself in and I think that is the reason we are moving
on this finally.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.'
First I would like to commend my colleague and chairman from
Florida and the chairwoman, Mrs. Schroeder, for joining these things
together to save us both time on this. I understand the seriousness of
the subject and the need to act immediately.
Also I would like to commend the Secretary. You have been before
our committee on numerous occasions and I think your preparation,
particularly after having gone through the SALT negotiation, on this
is excellent.
I might just mention that one of the questions that went through
my mind immediately after your testimony and the chairman's first
question was you had eight points that you answered very precisely
from that little blue book and then the chairwoman asked a question
and you had very good points. My question is who pre-pared the little
blue book?
I will pass on that one.
I would like to know and share some concern. First, what is the
projected cost basically of the old system?
Secretary VANCE. The projected cost in terms of actual dollars I
will ask Mr. Read to give you, but I can tell you that the net cost or
the objective is that there will be no direct net cost increase.
Now when performance pay is authorized and when it is determined
within the executive branch how much the performance pay will be,
in other words how much will each of the departments be permitted
to devote to that, then I could give you that figure but other than that
it is no additional cost, no promotions or demotions flowing from this.
In other words, we are trying to do it on the basis of the status quo
insofar as cost is concerned.
Mr. MICA. Within the Foreign Service personnel is there great sup-
port or opposition to this proposal?
Secretary VANCE. Within the Foreign Service I would say that I
think that there is a substantial majority that supports the. legislation.
There are some who disagree, as one would expect, with various parts.
Some people do not agree with the concept of a Senior Foreign
Service which I happen to think is of great importance and I think
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that the majority of people believe that it is of great importance. I
think there is a broad majority consensus in favor of many of the
principal features of the bill.
Mr. MICA. At least 51 percent?
Secretary VANCE. I think greater than that. I think the affirmation
of the role of the Foreign Service and its importance as a distant
entity and not something that should be consolidated into the civil
service, the idea is that there should be a separate Foreign Service,
has broad support.
There is broad support for conversion to civil service status of the
Foreign Service personnel who are: not going to be serving overseas.
There is broad support for the labor management provisions of the
bill which we have put before you.
There is broad support for a single Foreign Service pay scale.
There is broad support for the consolidation of the multiple For-
eign Service personnel categories into two categories.
The new procedures to assure that up-and-out rules will be carried
out and carried out effectively is broadly supported.
So on these fundamental essential principles I think that you will
find, and you will see this from those who come to testify before you,
that there is broad support and that is more than 51 percent.
Mr. MICA. Basically we are being told there will be good manage-
ment and it will cost no more.
Secretary VANCE. You are being told this. But you will also find
that there are provisions of the bill with which some will disagree.
I have consulted with AFSA and they will be coming to testify before
you.
Mr. MICA. Are they supporting you.
Secretary VANCE. They will have to speak for themselves on this.
I know on a number of issues they will support it. I think they should
speak for themselves and I should not try to speak for them, but I
have benefited, I can tell you, from my consultations with them.
Mr. MICA. Have they taken a public position for or against the
entire bill?
Secretary VANCE. Not in its current form that is before you now.
They ought to speak for themselves on its current form because we
sent drafts to them as we went along. They commented on those var-
ious drafts. They pointed out areas which they did not disagree with.
I sat down with them after having studied what they were against
and in some cases said, yes, I agree with you and changed what there
was in the draft. In other cases I disagreed and said no, and gave my
reasons why I did not agree with them and did not accept their recom-
mendations. So they should speak for themselves.
Mr. MICA. Thank you. Just one final comment. In our first meeting
here
Secretary VANCE. Let me say one more thing that you should have
in answer to your question. The Board of the Foreign Service has
endorsed the bill as I am presenting it to you.
Mr. MICA. In our first meeting here we discussed the Iranian situa-
tion and I indicated to you that I had had feedback from professionals
who had a feeling that there was a policy, although unwritten, that
feedback to the Department was being stifled, was not encouraged,
and that to a certain extent caused some of our misreadings of the
Iranian situation.
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I realize that this does not get into the details of this legislation,
but I would hope that every portion of this legislation and any other
legislation dealing with the Department would encourage all seg-
ments of the Foreign Service to have some type of input. I under-
stand it must be logical and systematical and so on, and proper proto-
col, but I think possibly along with the Ambassador.-the clerk at the
front desk in an embassy may have some insight as to what is going
on in a nation and ought to have some way to get that information
back to appropriate channels.
The information I continue to get is that there is a reluctance and
a feeling within the Department not to do this, that if you contradict
even unofficially the senior officials that it may reflect fully on your
career.
Thank you.
Secretary VAxcE. As far as I am concerned I welcome criticism, I
welcome suggestions, and I find that I learn a great deal through
what is reported to me from embassies and from what I hear when I
go to the various embassies and talk with the personnel there. I think
that the only way you can run an organization is to have a free and
open channel where people can express their differences or their sug-
gestions as to how to improve the system.
I have been around long enough to know that this does not always
get through, and I am sure .that a lot of people feel that they are
not being listened to, but they are and should be as a matter of princi-
ple, and let me say the provisions of the bill support this principle.
Mr. MICA. Thank you.
No further questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER [presiding]. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I have certain concerns about the approaches outlined in this bill,
but I would like to say that I strongly appreciate your personal view
and say that as a former Foreign Service officer I was often struck
by the negligence of top management of the Department of State in
dealing with the Foreign Service. Your involvement and interest is
extraordinary and much to be commended.
I might say that this bill does two things in effect. One, it deals
with design of structure. Second, it deals with method of
compensation.
In 19711 wrote a study for AFSA on compensation. As you know
comparability is a very difficult thing to achieve. One approach to com-
parability, with which my particular study dealt, is simply compara-
bility with the civil service. Partly because of management negligence,
partly because of a lack of understanding and too much desire to be
independent, the Foreign Service really didn't realize how much it had
started to lag behind the civil service in general.
It is very difficult, as almost anyone knows who deals with this issue,
to come up with jobs comparable to what a Foreign Service officer does.
Therefore, one of my original theories was to say let's just compensate
people on a comparable basis with what they would be earning in the
civil service per se.
In any respect it is very clear that the Foreign Service today is inade-
quately compensated, and. therefore it is with a little bit of surprise
that I listened to you comment that there will be no net cost increase.
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Are you saying that you are going to turn your back on the Hay Asso-
ciates study or that you will not be attempting to establish compensa-
tion comparable to the civil service?
Secretary VANCE. There will be comparability, but as you know the
pay study has just come in. We have transmitted it to the Congress. We
are in the process of reviewing it within the executive branch, not only
within the Department of State but obviously within the Office of Man-
agement and Budget. That will take a while to do.
In addition, AID and ICA are going to have to review the study.
Until we have been able to review this matter entirely within the exec-
utive branch, I think we are just going to have to stay where we are at
this point. If at the end of that review we conclude that other steps are
necessary to be taken, I am going to be first to say let's go forward and
do it but at this point there is no final decision.
Mr. LEACH. Let me just say that when you develop the methodology
to accomplish the conversions contemplated in the bill and there is a
tie-in between your top three positions, for example, and GS-18, the
second and third positions with GS-16, or possibly GS-15, an immedi-
ate salary increase is implied. If it is done across the board and done
correctly because the study demonstrates that current salaries are lower
than they should be, I don't know how the mathematics can work out
so that there is no increase involved, unless you perhaps are contem-
plating staging it in overtime.
Secretary VANCE. On the mathematics of that I would like to ask
Mr. Read to comment on it and flesh out what I have to say.
Mr. READ. The Office of Management and Budget people, Mr. Leach,
made it very clear that in their role as one of the two pay agents of the
President that they were the ones that would look at the pay study and
determine the correctness of its methodology and concur or not con-
cur with the evidence of inadequate pay comparability that is strongly
provided in some cases but not in other cases, as you will see from the
study which has been submitted. But they were willing to let the bill
go forward saying that when an administration position was devel-
oped, it would be submitted without delay to the Hill.
Mr. LEACH. Let me say, just in doing my own mathematics, it strikes
me as completely inconsistent to say that the bill can stand as proposed
without the recognition that it will cost more because it clearly will
cost more. If it does not cost more, then you are going to have to go
through some sort of convoluted process whereby you transfer cur-
rent Foreign Service officers, possibly at a lower step, into the new
system.
One of the things that I was looking at in an earlier version of this
legislation, considered by the Department, was the truly critical issue
of how the initial transfers take place-to what grades you transfer
people. That initial proposal was of monumental consequence. The
program could have been carried out in positive fashion. On the other
hand, it could have been carried out in negative fashion.
Unless one is willing to make a strong statement about the likeli-
hood that it will cost more-and it might be that you would want to
come up with a staggered 3-year period, hopefully not 4 or 5, but say
3 years with the recognition of greater costs over the long term-I
would be gravely concerned that the Foreign Service system would be
taking a step backward rather than forward.
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I might say in this regard that if you go by direct cost, rather than
the comparability figure, you are going to be behind the eight ball.
I suspect that with regard to any issue vis a vis the Foreign Service,
the top echelon in State is going to have to take an extremely strong
stand on the comparability issue with the OMB. If the Foreign Service
is not defended on this issue, what we could see is a new structure but.
not one which is beneficial or encourages advancement.
Mr. READ. I would like to say that I have given that commitment to
the Foreign Service and will fulfill it. I consider it a matter of good
faith to do so, but what I am not in a position to do today is to say
what will be accepted or not accepted as the administration position.
Mr. LEACH. I would only respond by saying that as a Member of
Congress it would be very difficult to vote positively or negatively on
this bill unless the economic ramifications were clearly spelled out and
the support of OMB or the position of OMB made definitive.
Mr. READ. The OMB is setting up a task force and has promised to
proceed without delay to consider the study and its implications. It is
an extremely thorough study as you will see when you examine it and
looks not only at the rest of the Federal service but at the overseas
private sector. It contains many points of reinforcement along these
lines.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you. I don't want to belabor the point. I appre-
ciate your coming and particularly, Mr. Secretary, your involvement
in this. I think there is an enormous opportunity for you to make a
majestic impact on the whole future of the U.S. Foreign Service and
your involvement and interest is something that I think will redound
to your great credit.
Secretary VANCE. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Barnes.
Mr. BARNES. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
I am not a member of either of the subcommittees. I am very grate-
ful to you and to the gentlelady from Colorado, too, for inviting the
Foreign Affairs Committee, and I am grateful to have the chance to
be here.
Particularly I am pleased that the Secretary of State this week in
the midst of all that is going on would take the time to come to the Hill
and to stress the importance of this legislation. I want to take my
moment here to commend you, Mr. Secretary, for the great success of
the past 10 days or so and hope that our colleagues on the other side of
the Hill see the wisdom of what you and the President have achieved
with respect to the negotiations with the Soviet Union. I think it is
a great achievement for our Nation and I, just as one Member of
Congress, want to publicly commend you for your leadership and very
important role in what has taken place.
Secretary VANCE. Thank you, Mr. Barnes.
Mr. BARNES. I had just a couple of questions with respect to the
legislation that is being considered by the subcommittees in this joint
hearing.
How will the enactment of the legislation. Mr. Secretary, affect the
existing relationships among State and AID and ICA, and does the
Department have the support of AID and ICA in the present revision
of the legislation?
Secretary VANCE. What we have strived to do is to achieve the
maximum compatibility that is possible and to integrate the steps that
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we are taking here with those which would be taken by ICA and by
AID.
Both John Reinhardt and the Acting AID Director, Bob Nooter,
will be testifying before you. Yesterday I sat with them as we prepared
a statement to our respective personnel in the three various agencies.
All of us at that time expressed support for the bill as developed. John
and Bob should speak for themselves precisely on any details, but as
far as the overall bill is concerned, I can say that we are all in support
of the action which we are proposing to you.
Mr. BARNES. Will this continue to apply to AID under the new
IDCA structure?
Secretary VANCE. The answer is "Yes."
Mr. BARNES. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. FASCELL. Do you have any other questions?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Secretary, let me say that my ranking minority
member, that you have now met, Mr. Leach, is a real expert on this. He
will be guiding us very carefully through this, and I am sure he will
ask many questions. Thank you again for coming this morning.
Secretary VANCE. Thank you very much, Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. Let me add
my commendation to you for your distinguished service to the country
in a very troublesome time. I am sure there will be a Cy Vance Award.
I guess you heard about the colloquy on the floor yesterday. There are
many eager recipients and you might want to consider it.
Secretary VANCE. Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Read.
Mr. READ. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Schroeder, other
members of the committee. This is the end of a long effort and the
beginning of another, and I am delighted to be here to present this
bill to you in slightly expanded form from the Secretary's presenta-
tion this morning.
Secretary Vance has described for the committee the principal
features of the proposed new Foreign Service Act. With your con-
sent, I will concentrate on three aspects of the bill which represent
the most significant departures from existing law and practice:
One, simplification and rationalization of the Department's dual
Foreign Service-civil service personnel systems;
Two, the Foreign Service career performance requirements for
tenure, compensation, promotion, and retention; and
Three, employee-management relations and related matters.
I think those opening remarks will answer two of the main points
of concern that Mrs. Schroeder referred to in her statement to the
Secretary.
Turning first to the Foreign Service-civil service relationship in
the Department of State, the bill would resolve a longstanding dis-
pute by its acceptance of and clear distinction between the Depart-
ment's dual Foreign Service-civil service systems.
Advocates of the dual systems as well as advocates of inclusion of
both worldwide and domestic categories in a single Foreign Service
system have seen their competing views reflected in various congres-
sional, executive branch, public, and private studies spanning three
decades.
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The dual systems, which was an underlying premise of the Foreign
Service Act of 1946, were supported in three major reports by the
Wriston Committee in 1954,. by AFSA in 1968, and by the Murphy
Commission in 1975.
The unitary worldwide system was backed by the Hoover Com-
mission in 1949, the administration-supported but unsuccessful Hays
bill in 1965-66, and the "Diplomacy for the Seventies" report in 1970.
Starting in 1971, the Department and USIA (now USICA) ini-
tiated an administrative personnel policy based on a limited single
service concept. Special inducements, including both partial or comm
plete exemption from overseas service, were offered to civil service
employees in both agencies who converted to Foreign Service status.
By 1975 the Department was criticized in a report by the Civil
Service Commission for its neglect and lack of career opportunities
for its civil service employees.
The problems with making the single service system work were
recognized explicitly at the end of the Ford administration in the
Department's interim report on January 10, 1977, to Congress in
response to the 1976 enactment calling for a "comprehensive plan"
to improve and simplify its personnel systems.
That report found that: ~~* * * A central reality which no earlier
study or plan has changed-although some may not have faced it
fully-is the existence of a domestic category of people in the Depart-
ment and USIA who supply essential skills and continuity of service
which cannot be met effectively by a worldwide service.
"Our examination of past efforts to create a single service has made
clear that the Foreign Service Act cannot serve as an instrument to
manage a domestic service. Efforts to implement this program have
not been successful. Uniformity has not brought equity or manage-
ment efficiency."
We agree fully with these conclusions. The lack of success of the
administrative policy to achieve a single system is illustrated by the
fact that there were approximately 3,100 civil service personnel in
State when the policy went into effect in 1971. There are approximately
the same number today.
Many persons providing policy and support assistance essential
to the Department's ability to conduct foreign affairs are needed and
willing to serve in Washington only. But 600 persons with such purely
domestic orientation in State have been given Foreign Service status ;
900 in USICA, with the resulting cited management inefficiencies.
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, as the committee well knows,
provides numerous improvements in the conditions of civil service
rank-in-position employment in all departments and agencies, includ-
ing State and USICA, with new opportunities, risks and benefits
linked to performance, particularly in the new Senior Executive
Service.
But as you will also recall, the Foreign Service was exempted from
many of the provisions of the 1978 act in recognition of its basically
different conditions of service, in particular the need for frequent
rotation from position to position and the consequent reliance on a
rank-in-person system.
The pending bill would recognize the dual Foreign Service-civil
service systems and the need to restore a rational and equitable divi-
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sion between them, while promoting compatibility and interchanges
between the systems under common principles whenever appropriate.
A transition objective of the bill is to convert Foreign Service
"domestic" employees to the civil service system, if they are not
obligated to accept and are not needed for worldwide, rotational as-
signments, and to do so as quickly as possible; but at the same time, to
guarantee the protection of individual rights and the preservation
of existing pay and benefits.
This conversion plan would permit Foreign Service "domestic"
employees with skills designated by the Secretary as needed abroad,
and who are willing and otherwise qualified to accept true worldwide
obligations, to elect to remain in the Foreign Service system.
Other Foreign Service domestic employees in the Department of
State would have a 3-year period in which to accept conversion to the
civil service system or to leave the Department.
Conversions to the civil service would take place under the fol-
lowing conditions : No loss in salary, and with unlimited protection
against downgrading as long as the employee did not voluntarily
move to another position; the right to remain in the Foreign Service
retirement and disability system (for those already members), or
alternatively, to elect to move to the civil service retirement system;
and the kind of appointment offered on conversion would parallel
that currently held-i.e., career Foreign Service would receive career
GS appointments, career candidates would receive probationary or
career conditional GS appointments, and those on time-limited ap-
pointments would be offered GS time-limited appointments.
Second, I would like to emphasize and illustrate the reasons for
the features of the bill to which Secretary Vance and I attribute
highest importance : Linking the grant. of tenure, advancement, com-
ensation, and incentive pay, as well as retention in the Foreign
Service more closely to high levels of performance.
The interaction of basic elements of a well-working career per-
sonnel system and the absolute necessity for closer linkage of such
elements to performance than at present has been painfully illus-
trated during the last 3 or 4 years, as the committee knows full well.
I refer to the impacted situation at senior levels which has caused
pervasive problems at all levels and revealed serious structural flaws.
This situation has been particularly alleviated in recent weeks, but
could recur at any time under slightly different circumstances, and
I would like to examine it with some care.
For years, many persons in the most senior positions in the Service
have been exempted from annual performance evaluation and selec-
tion out for substandard performance. This placed heavy reliance
on voluntary and mandatory retirement as the primary means of
senior attrition which in turn largely determined the limits on pro-
motions in all junior and middle ranks.
In February of 1977, a long-delayed executive pay raise granted
by Congress went into effect and, resulted in more than a 50-percent
drop in voluntary retirements because many members of the Service
who were considering such retirements understandably decided to
serve for 3 years at the new salary rate to obtain fullest pension
benefits.
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In June of 1977, a lower court decision prohibited use of the 60-
year retirement limit set in the 1946 act on constitutional grounds,
and until the ruling was reversed by the Supreme Court in April of
this year, mandatory retirements stopped altogether.
Thus, largely by the coincidence of two events completely beyond
administrative remedy, senior departures from the Service slowed
to a mere 5 percent.
This situation was aggravated by two additional factors : an admin-
istrative move in 1976 to extend to 22 years the combined permissible
time in classes 1 and 2, and the actual or virtual cessation in several
recent years of selection out for substandard performance.
The combination of all these factors required us to set the lowest
promotion rates since World War II and to reduce intake accordingly.
Obviously, this had a crippling effect on morale, and some excellent
and most promising younger persons were lost to the Service as a
result.
That the Foreign Service has performed as well as it has under
the circumstances I think is a tribute to its highly dedicated personnel.
To prevent recurrence of such situations, we are suggesting a multi-
faceted approach in the bill to achieving higher performance require-
ments for all aspects of Service life.
The bill would establish a new Senior Foreign Service for the
highest three ranks, paralleling with adaptations the new senior
executive service. Present career ministers and eligible FSO/FSRU/
FSR-1's and 2's who are obligated and needed for worldwide service
could elect to join the Senior Foreign Service within 120 days of the
date of enactment of the bill.
Membership in the SFS during and after transition would involve
greater benefits and risks based on performance. Performance pay
would be available for outstanding service within the same limits as
provided for the Senior Executive Service in the 1978 law, but with
greater stress on analysis, policy advice, and the other factors which
determine success in the Senior Foreign Service.
Variable short time-in-class rules and selection out of relative sub-
standard performance on the recommendations of annual selection
boards are procedures which are retained and tightened and made
applicable for the first time to all members of the highest three ranks
of the Service.
Current voluntary and mandatory retirement provisions of the law,
which are vital for the proper operation of the Service, are retained
without change.
Under a new proposed procedure, members of the Senior Foreign
Service and other members of the Service whose maximum time in
class expires after they reach the highest class for their respective
personnel categories, may continue to serve under renewable limited
extensions of their career appointments, not to exceed 5 years.
Such extensions would be granted only on the basis of selection
board recommendations and the needs of the Service.
A rigorous SFS threshold procedure is proposed under which mem-
bers of the Foreign Service at the new threshold class (FS-1) must
request consideration for promotion into the SFS and then would
remain eligible for a period of time, say 5 years, which would be
specified by the Secretary.
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20
.If not promoted on the recommendation of the selection boards
during that time, the member would be "passed over," a concept bor-
rowed from the military-and they would no longer be eligible for
promotion into the SFS. This, it is expected, could enable such per-
sons to make more timely second career decisions than now permitted
under our current system.
Middle and junior ranks of the Foreign Service are also more close-
ly tied to performance. After transition to the new system, selection
out for substandard performance would be applicable for the first time
to all Foreign Service personnel.
The bill would require all persons seeking career Foreign Service
status at any level to pass a strict tenuring process. A career status
is presently conferred almost automatically in many cases.
Within-class salary increases could be added or withheld for out-
standing or poor performance on the basis of selection board recom-
mendations in the middle grades.
All of these performance-related features and others would enable
the Foreign Service to overcome and avoid the crippling structural
defects, such as the ones I have cited, which now encumber the system
and deter advancement and retention of the ablest.
I am confident that it would produce a stronger, more professional,
and efficient Service better equipped to meet its heavy future re-
quirements.
And third, the bill includes a new chapter 10 governing employee-
management relations, replacing Executive Order 11636 which has
covered such matters since 1971.
Mr. FASCELL. We have a rollcall vote. We will recess and go vote
on the Kramer of Colorado amendment.
We will be back momentarily.
Mr. READ. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 10:53 a.m., the joint subcommittees recessed, to
reconvene at 11:10 a.m.]
Mr. FABCELL. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. READ. Mr. Chairman, picking up-I had just gotten to the third
and final one of the three major points that I wanted to stress in my
statement, employee-management relations and related matters.
I was saying that we are proposing a new chapter 10 in the bill
before you to govern such relationships, replacing Executive Order
11636 which has covered such matters since 1971.
The Department favors placing employee management on a sound
statutory basis for several reasons.
The existing executive order states that the Foreign Affairs agen-
cies should take into account developments elsewhere in the Federal
Government.
It would be unfair to deny Foreign Service. employees a legislative
labor-management program when one has been granted to over 2 mil-
lion other Federal employees in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
The chapter is an essential element of the bill in that it adapts to
the special needs of the Foreign Service the labor-management pro-
gram provided for other Federal employees.
It guarantees employees the right to participate in matters which
have a direct bearing on their careers. The chapter differs from the
present Executive order in the following key aspects.
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It creates an independent Foreign Service Labor Relations Board
consisting of the chairman, Federal Labor Relations Authority and
two public members.
It excludes certain personnel, security, inspection, and audit officials
from the bargaining unit.
It gives the exclusive representative organization the right to be
present at formal meetings between management and employees.
It provides for judicial review of decisions by the Foreign Service
Labor Relations Board.
It provides for the negotiation of an organizational disputes resolu-
tion mechanism which is new.
In a related provision in chapter 11 on grievances, the exclusive
employee bargaining organization must represent or agree to other
representation in the processing of employee grievances. In addition,
only the exclusive representative may invoke access to the Foreign
Service Grievance Board.
There are, of course, many other important features of the bill, such
as the provisions for reducing to two below the Senior Foreign Service
the more than a dozen existing personnel categories and subcategories
and for placing them under a single service pay scale; for Foreign
Service spouses; and family members; for equal opportunity; and for
greater compatibility among the personnel systems of the agencies
authorized to use Foreign Service personnel.
But I think you may find it preferable to get at those issues through
the summaries and section-by-section analysis we have submitted and
through your questions.
the last 7 months, to distinguish between certain kinds of issues and
questions: (a) General ones relating to the purposes of the bill and its
background; (b) those set forth in the 12 chapters of title I of the bill
relating to the proposed future Foreign Service Act .personnel system
once fully implemented; and (c) transitional problems covered in title
II which relates to moving from the existing to the proposed system.
Finally, there are a set of closely related nonstatutory questions not
covered by the bill which have to do with questions of present and
future administration and implementation of the proposed new act.
may help for you to think of them in those categories.
Harry Barnes. Director General of the. Fnre.;vn \PrvleP an.i T)irPn-
for of Personnel, Jim Michel, Deputy Legal Adviser and principal
draftsman of the bill, and I will be glad to try to respond now or
would be of assistance to members of the committee.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Mr. FnscELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
I think this is a matter of procedure. We will go to general ques-
tions first and then if it is agreeable with Mrs. Schroeder we will go
nto the detail of the. bill.
Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am not sure which of my questions will be quali-
led as general and which are qualified as specific.
Mr. FASCELL. Ask them anyway.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Let me ask a question that we have been asking a
lot in our committee.
In our committee we have had trouble with OMB wanting to look
at everybody's testimony on the bill when they bring it up and we
call that kissing through a picket fence. So what I want to know is
whether you have cleared this with OMB or not at this point?
Mr. READ. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What did it look like before and what did it look
like after it came through the picket fence?
Mr. READ. I am delighted to say that the changes were stylistic and
not substantive that were suggested yesterday.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. However we could see those stylistic changes to
make sure that we would have the same interpretation, do you think?
Mr. READ. If you request, I will seek such authority.
Mr. FASCELL. Just an abundance of caution, you understand, Mr.
Secretary.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have many, many specific questions. I don't know
quite where to begin.
Well, in selecting candidates for the Foreign Service I have been
really surprised to look at your tests and find out how differently each
year you have weighed different segments. Our committee has been go-
ing into civil service tests for quite a bit of time. I have never seen
a test that one year you weigh one section this amount and the next
year you do something else and it appears to be incredibly haphazard.
Do you have any comment on that and is there any way to get that
under control?
Mr. READ. I will ask Harry Barnes to comment in more detail, but
it has been a process which I have seen worked on and efforts made to
perfect over a 10-year period. We have sought and obtained the advice
of the Educational Testing Service at Princeton to help us remove
from the questions any element of bias that may be part of the
examination.
The exams are gone over with enormous care to remove any vestiges
of such bias remaining in them. I would note that this is an adminis-
trative implementation area, not a statutory one, but we have made
strenuous efforts to improve. Harry Barnes could probably provide
more details.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY BARNES, DIRECTOR GENERAL OF
THE FOREIGN SERVICE
Mr. BARNES. The changes that have been brought in in the last couple
of years have been very many, a number in connection with EEO
concerns.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. See, that is what bothers me. I cannot figure out
what in the world it is that you are doing. If you change the
rating every year, maybe women do better on language portions,
therefore, we will take in more women. I think in the private sector
you would get in great trouble doing that. I hear you saying that and
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yet I really do not see from the statistics that you have taken in more
minorities or more women because of this. I tried to figure whether the
test is geared toward the job performance. I have heard your commit-
ment to affirmative action but I have not heard any result that has
made that work.
Mr. BARNES. Let me clarify what I was trying to get at. The types of
changes I am talking about have been largely initiated through the
assistance of the Educational Testing Service at Princeton getting at
those factors which would seem to prejudice, which would seem to
cause difficulties for minorities or women. If you like, that is a type of
screening, a type of verification.
The other thing we have been struggling with in the past couple of
years has been trying to make the tests more job related. Here it is in
part the reflection of some of our own concerns as to whether we have
been giving tests that tie in closely enough to what we require. To go
into perhaps somewhat more detail, in the Foreign Service Officer
Corps we have been trying to find the right balance and I would submit
this not so much haphazard as perhaps an attempt to find the right mix
and not being satisfied we had found the right mix. The combination
of those tests which will show what skills people have that make them
probably better suited, say, for the consular functions, say, as com-
pared to the economic function. Those tests which provide the type of
general background, say, on such questions as American culture and
history would be a requisite for everyone concerned.
We have also been making some adaptations. I don't know whether
you were thinking just in terms of written examination. We have been
making some adaptations to the oral examinations again in order to get
a closer approximation of the sorts of people we think we need.
If we could comment on one of your specific points in terms of sort of
results showed, we are increasing the number of people who are coming
in through the examination process, both in terms of women and in
terms of minorities. You are also familiar, and I can go into more
detail, with the affirmative action program as we have which are
focused in that area.
Mr. FASCELL. Will you yield right there at that point?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Will you supply for the record the total number of
personnel you have in the Foreign Service. number of women, mi-
norities, and by grades so that we can have before us some kind of a
guide?
Mr. READ. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And the rate of progress through the promotion
boards and whether or not they like to travel.
Mr. BARNES. You notice we stress worldwide availability. We like to
travel.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Good.
Mr. FASCELL. You guys do better than the Congress, I will tell you
that.
[The material referred to follows:]
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24
NUMERICAL SUMMARY OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE
[By category, grade level, male/female, and minority group representation]
Dec. 31, 1977 Dec. 31, 1978 Percent
Total Women Percent Total Women Percent difference
FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS (FSO)
CA-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CM---------------------------------- 39 -------------------- 38 ------------------------------
FSO-1 ------------------------------- 341 8 2.3 335 11 3.3 +1.0
FSO-2------------------------------- 310 8 2.6 315 9 2.9 +.3
Subtotal, senior level------------
690
16
2.3
688
20
2.9
+.6
------------------------
FSO-3
655
39
6.0
683
40
5.9
-.1
0
1
-------
----------------------
FSO-4
803
51
6.4
773
57
7.4
+
.
9
---------
FSO-5-------------------------------
590
85
14.4
613
94
15.3
+.
Subtotal, middle level-----------
2,048
175
8.5
2,069
191
9.2
+.7
---------------------------
FSO-6
397
75
18.9
486
104
21.4
+2.5
----
------------------------
FSO-7
318
;57
17.9
160
26
16.3
3
-------
FSO-8-------------------------------
61
14
23.0
11
3
27.3
+4.
Subtotal, junior level------------
776
146
18.8
657
133
20.2
+1.4
Total, FSO---------------------
3,514
337
9.6
3,414
344
10.1
+.5
FOREIGN SERVICE RESERVE (FSR)
FSR-1
--------------------
60
3
5.0
49
3
6.1
+1.1
-----------
FSR-2-------------------------------
126
6
4.8
119
11
9.2
+4.4
Subtotal, senior level------------
186
9
9.8
168
14
8.3
+3.5
FSR-3
----------------------------
198
19
9.6
178
15
8.4
-1.2
---
--------------------------
FSR-4
285
51
17.9
270
35
13.0
-4.9
-----
FSR-5-------------------------------
378
64
16.9
430
72
16.7
-.2
Subtotal, middle level-----------
861
134
15.6
878
122
13.9
-1.7
FSR-6
------------------
462
105
22.7
476
87
18.3
-4.4
-------------
FSR-7
---------------------
534
110
20.6
592
106
17.9
-2.7
----------
FSR-8-------------------------------
183
20
10.9
130
24
18.5
+7.6
Subtotal, junior level------------
1,179
.235
19.9
1,198
217
18.1
-1.8
Total, FSR---------------------
2,226
378
17.0
2,244
353
15.7
-1.3
FOREIGN
SERVICE RESERVE UN-
LIMITED (FSRU)
FSRU-1-----------------------------
FSRU-2------------------------------
107
6
5.6
109
5
4.6
-1.0
Subtotal senior level-------------
156
6
3.8
165
5
3.0
-.8
FSRU-3------------------------------
108
21
19.4
146
.16
11.0
-8.4
----------------------------
FSRU-4
124
lE
12.9
191
33
17.3
+4.4
--
FSRU-5------------------------------
109
38
34.9
173
48
27.7
-7.2
Subtotal middle level------------
341
75
22.0
510
97
19.0
-3.0
Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
NUMERICAL SUMMARY OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE-Continued
[By category, grade level, male/female, and minority group representationj
Total
Women
Percent
Total
Women
Percent difference
FOREIGN SERVICE RESERVE UN-
LIMITED (FSRU)-Continued
FSRU-6 ______________________________ 166
FSRU-7
31
18.7
183
39
21
3 +2
6
------------------------------ 97
FSRU-8
11
11.6
98
16
.
.
16.3 +4
7
------------------------------ 9
1
11.1
8
.
+11.1
Subtotal junior level_____________ 270
43
15.9
289
55
19.0 +3.1
Total FSRU_____________________ 767
124
16.2
964
157
16.3 +.1
FOREIGN SERVICE STAFF (FSSO/FSS)
FSSO-1 ------------------------------ 57
FSSO-2
10
17.5
52
10
19
2 +1
7
------------------- ___________ 98
FSSO-3
26
26.5
102
30
.
.
29.4 2
9
______________171
49
28.7
181
51
.
28.2 -.5
Subtotal middle level ------------
326
85
26.1
335
91
27.2 +1.1
FSSO-4------------------------------
FSSO-5--------------------------- -----------------------
262
464
131
238
50.0
51.3
245
570
137
349
55.9 +5.9
61.2 +9.9
FSSO-8------------------------ ______
FSSO-9
506
353
69.8
310
204
65
8 -4
0
______________________________
FSSO-10
100
57
57.0
108
69
.
.
63.9
9
+6
_____________
41
37
90.2
37
34
.
91.9 +1.7
Subtotal support level___________
647
447
69.1
455
307
67.5 -1.6
Total FSSO/FSS---------------
2,529
1,416
56.0
2,539
1,438
56.6 +.6
ALL FOREIGN SERVICE (FSO/R/RU AND
FSS/FSSO)
CA
------------ ---------------------
CM-----------------
FSO/R/RU-1
39
- ---------- ---
38 --------
__________________________ 450
FSO/R/RU-2________
543
11
20
2.4 440 14
3.2
+.9
_____..........
3.7 543 25
4.6
+.9
Subtotal senior level_____________ 1,032
31
3.0 1,021 39
3.8 +,8
FSO/R/RU-3/FSSO-1______________1,018
FSO/R/RU
4
FSSO
2
89
8.7 1,059 81
7
6 -1
1
/
-
-
____________ 1,310
FSO/R/RU
5
FS
144
11.0 1336 155
.
.
11
6 +
6
-
/
SO-3_________.......... 1, 248
236
18.9 1, 397 265
.
.
19.0 +,1
Subtotal middle level____________ 3,576
469
13.1 3,792 501
13.2 +.1
FSO/R/RU-6/FSSO-4___________ _ 1,287
FSO/R/RU-7/FSSO-5
1
255
342
26.6 1,390 367
26.4 -.2
______
,
-6 775
FSO/R/RU /FS-7 7
464
385
344
30.6 1184 359
44. 4 749 370
30.3 -.3
49.4
9.9
_____________
238
51.3 570 349
61.2 +
~}9.9
Subtotal junior level_____________ 3,781
1,308
34.6 3,893 1,445
37.1 +2.5
FSS-8------------- __________________ 506
FSS
-9_
100
353
69.8 310 204
65.8 -4.0
-------------
FSS
-
10
57
57.0 108 69
63.9 +6
9
-------------
_______________ 41
37
90.2 37 34
.
91.9 +1.7
Subtotal support level...-------- 647
447
69.1 455 307
67.5 -1.6
Total FS_______________________ 9,036
2,255
25.0 9,161 2,292
25.0 ..........
Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
NUMERICAL SUMMARY OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE-Continued
SUMMARY BY PAY PLAN
Total Total Total Total Percent
popula- minori- popula- minori- difter-
tion ties Percent tion ties Percent ence
FOREIGN SERVICE
CA
----
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
CM
--------------------------------
39
1
2.6
38
1
2.6
7
----------
0
2
--
FSO---------------------------------
3,475
158
4.5
3,376
160
2
4.
9
8
.
+
+
4
FSR---------------------------------
FSR6--------------------------------
2,226
767
210
9.4
6.9
2 964
2
1
.
8.8
.
2,529
174
6.9
2,539
183
7.2
+.3
Total Foreign Service------------
9,036
596
6.6
9,161
650
7.1
+.5
FOREIGN SERVICE RESERVE
UNLIMITED (FSRU)
FSRU-1
---------------------------
49
1
2.0
56
1
1.8
-.2
9
---
FSRU-2------------------------------
107
1
.9
109
2
1.8
+.
Subtotal senior level ------------
156
2
1.3
165
3
1.8
+.5
----------------------------
FSRU-3
108
5
4.6
146
8
5.5
+.9
--
---------------------------
FSRU-4
124
13
10.5
191
20
10.5
----------
9
---
FSRU-5------------------------------
109
6
5.5
173
11
6.4
+.
Subtotal middle level------------
341
24
7.0
510
39
7.6
+.6
------------------------
FSRU-6
166
14
8.4
183
26
14.2
+5.8
7
------
FSRU-7------------------------------
95
12
12.6
98
16
16.3
5
+3.
4
1
FSRU-8------------------------------
9
1
11.1
8
1
12.
.
+
Subtotal junior level-------------
270
27
10.0
289
43
14.9
+4.9
Total FSRU---------------------
767
53
6.9
964
85
8.8
+1.9
FOREIGN SERVICE STAFF (FSSO/FSS)
FSSO-1
----------------------------
57 2
3.5
52
2
3.8 +.3
8
--
---------------------------
FSSO-2
98 4
4.1
101
5
4.9 +.
2
1
---
FSSO-3------------------------------
171 13
7.6
181
16
.
8.8 +
Subtotal middle level ------------
326 19
5.8
335
23
6.9 1. 1
----------------------
-
FSSO-4
262 25
9.5
245
25
10.2 +.7
8
------
-
-------------------------
-
FSSO-5
308 22
7.1
334
21
6.3 -.
---
-
---
FSSO-6
522 34
6.5
600
44
7.3
1
---------------------------
FSSO-7-----------------------------
64 33
4
7.1
34
.8
6.0
Subtotal junior level-------------
1,556 114
7.3
1,749
124
7.1 -.2
-------------------------
FSSO-8
506 33
6.5
310
26
8.4 +1.9
4
-----
----------------------
FSSO-9
100 7
7.0
108
8
7.4
0
--------
FSSO-10-----------------------------
41 1
2.4
37
2
5.4 +3.
Subtotal support level-----------
647 41
6.3
455
36
7.9 +1.6
Total FSSO/FSS-----------------
2,529 174
6.9
2,539
183
7.2 +.3
FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER (FSO)
CA--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CM---------------------------------- 39 1 2.6 38 1 2.6 ----------
FSO-1------------------------------- 341 8 2.3 335 9 2.7 +.4
FSO-2------------------------------- 310 9 2 9 315 8 2.5 -.4
Subtotal senior level------------- 690 18 2.6 ?688 18 2.6 ----------
Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
NUMERICAL SUMMARY OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE-Continued
SUMMARY BY PAY PLAN
Total
popula-
tion
Total
minori-
ties Percent
Total
popula-
tion
Total Percent
minori- differ-
ties Percent ence
FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER (FSO)-
Continued
FSO-3-------------------------------
655
16 2.4
683
18 2.6 +0.2
FSO-4-------------------------------
803
31 3.9
773
36 4.7 +.8
FSO-5-------------------------------
590
68 11.5
613
71 11.6 +.1
Subtotal middle level____________
2,048
115 5.6
2,069
125 6.0 +.4
FSO-6-------------------------------
397
24 6.0
486
18 3.7 -2.3
FSO-7-------------------------------
FSO-8
318
61
2 .6
160
-------------------- -.6
-------------------------------
--------------------
11
------------------------------
Subtotaljunior level _____________
Total FSO______________________
3,514
159 4.5
FOREIGN SERVICE RESERVE (FSR)
FSR-1-------------------------------
60
1 1.7
49
2
4.1
+2.4
FSR-2-------------------------------
126
5 4.0
119
6
5.0
+1.0
Subtotal senior level_____________
186
6 3.2
FSR-3-------------------------------
198
15 7.6
178
12
6.7
-.9
FSR-4-------------------------------
285
16 5.6
270
13
4.8
-.8
FSR-5-------------------------------
378
28 7.4
430
41
9.5
+2.1
FSR-6 _______________________________
462
55 11.9
476
52
10.9
-1.0
FSR-7-------------------------------
534
71 13.3
592
81
13.7
+.4
FSR-8-------------------------------
183
19 10.4
130
14
10.8
+.4
Total FSR______________________
2,226
210 9.4
2,244
221
9.8
+.4
ALL FOREIGN SERVICE
(FSO/R/RU AND FSSO/FSS)
CA --------------------
CM----------------------------------
39
1 2.6
38
1
2.6
----------
FSO/R/RU-1--------------------
450
10 2.2
440
12
2.7
+.5
FSO/R/RU-2----------------- ___------
543
15 2.8
543
16
2.9
+.1
FSO/R/RU-3/FSSO-1-------------------
1,018
38 3.7
1,059
40
3.8
+.1
FSO/R/RU-4/FSSO-2-------------------
1,310
64 4.9
1,336
74
5.5
+.6
FSO/R/RU-5/FSSO-3-------------------
1,248
115 9.2
1,397
139
9.9
+.7
FSO/R/RU-6/FSSO-4-------------------
1,287
118 9.2
1,390
121
8.7
-.5
FSO/R/RU-7/FSSO-5-------- _----------
1,255
107 8.5
1,184
118
10.0
+1.5
FSO/R/RU-8/FSSO-6-------------------
775
54 7.0
749
59
7.9
+.9
FSSO-7 ------------------------------
464
33 7.1
570
34
6.0
-1.1
FSS-8 -------------------------------
506
33 6.5
310
26
8.4
+1.9
FSS-9 -------------------------------
100
7 7.0
108
8
7.4
+.4
FSS-10________________________------
41
1 2.4
37
2
5.4
+3.0
Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
28
SUMMARY OF PROMOTION RATES FOR MALE/FEMALE AND MINORITIES COMPARED TO THE OVERALL RATE
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FSO PROMOTIONS 1976-78-COMPARISON BY SEX
Percent of Percent of Percent of
Number eligible Number eligible Number eligible
2 to 1:
1976----------------------------- 61 24.8 59 24.4 2 50.0
1977----------------------------- 50 21.2 49 21.1 1 25.0
1978 ((A))_________________________ 10 4.1 9 3.8 1 14.3
1978 (B)_____________ 20 9.3 19 9.0 1 20.0
3to2:
1976----------------------------- 70 14.3 66 14.2 4 16.7
1977----------------------------- 70 14.1 69 14.6 1 4.2
1978 A)). ------------ 21 4.0 21 4.3 ------------------------
1978 (____________ 35 7.4 32 7.2 3 10.7
4to3:
1976_____________________________ 121 16.9 111 16.3 10 28.6
1977_____________________________ 143 119.5 131 18.9 12 29.7
1978 (A) ------------------------- 25 3.5 25 3.8 ------------------------
1978(B) ------------------------- 90 11.5 85 11.6 5 9.4
5 to 4:
1976----------------------------- 138 '23.5 115 22.6 23 29.1
1977_____________________________ 105 19.0 98 20.5 7 9.3
1978 (A)_________________________ 13 2.5 11 2.5 2 2.5
1978 (B) ------------------------- 92 14.7 82 15.4 10 10.5
6 to 5:
1976----------------------------- 81 29.1 70 29.5 11 26.8
1977_____________________________ 77 ,22.2 70 24.4 7 11.7
1978 (A)------------------------- 42 12.0 34 12.1 8 11.3
1978 (B)_________________________ 92 25.1 78 27.0 14 17.9
Totals:
1976---------------------- 471 20.3 421 19.7 50 27.3
1977_______________________ 445 18.9 417 19.3 28 13.5
1978 (A)___________________ 111 4.7 100 4.7 11 4.7
1978 (B)___________________ 329 13.4 296 13.4 33 12.8
BY CONE
PD:
1976----------------------------- 37 48.7 36 48.0 1 100.0
1977----------------------------- 20 37.0 20 100.0 ------------------------
1978 (A)------------------------- 2 5.1 1 2.6 1 100.0
1978 (B)------------------------- 3 7.0 3 7.0 ------------------------
POL:
1976----------------------------- 117 13.6 112 13.5 5 15.6
1977----------------------------- 178 18.2 171 18.2 7 18.9
1978 (A)-------------------- ---- 44 4.8 41 4.7 3 8.1
1978 (B)------------------------- 102 13.1 116 13.0 6 15.4
E/C:
1976----------------------------- 146 23.0 138 22.8 8 27.6
1977_____________________________ 125 21.3 119 21.5 6 17.6
1978 (A)------------------------- 25 4.2 25 4.5 ------------------------
1978 (B)------------------------- 77 12.1 65 11.0 12 26.1
ADM:
1976----------------------------- 100 24.6 76 21.9 24 40.7
1977----------------------------- 64 16.2 60 17.4 4 8.0
1978 (A)------------------------- 17 4.1 17 4.9 ------------------------
1978 (B)------------------------- 76 17.8 69 19.2 7 10.3
CONS:
1976----------------------------- 69 21.2 57 21.6 12 19.4
1977----------------------------- 56 16.5 45 17.3 11 12.8
1978 (A)------------------------- 22 6.1 15 5.5 7 8.0
1978 (B)------------------------- 51 12.1 43 13.6 8 7.7
SPT:
1976----------------------------- 2 22.2 2 22.2 ------------------------
1977----------------------------- 2 20.0 2 100.0 ------------------------
1978 A) ------------ 1 11.1 1 11.1 ------------------------
1978 B)
------I-----------------------------------------------------
UNCON 0:
1978 (A) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1978 (B) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals:
1976----------------------- 471 20.3 421 19.7 50 27.3
1977----------------------- 445 18.9 417 19.3 28 13.5
1978 (A)___________________ 111 4.7 100 4.7 11 4.7
1978 (B)___________________ 329 13.4 296 13.4 33 12.8
Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
29
SUMMARY OF PROMOTION RATES FOR MALE/FEMALE AND MINORITIES COMPARED TO THE OVERALL RATE
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FSO PROMOTIONS 1976-78-COMPARISON BY SEX-Continued
2 to 1:
1976____________________________
48.5
48.4 52.8
4.4
4.4 5.3
1977____________________________
49.4
49.2 56.0
4.2
4.2 2.0
1978 (A -----------
46.9
47.3 43.0
3.1
4.1 2.0
1978 B ___________
47.9
48.0 45.8
3.8
3.3 3
0
3 to 2:
.
1976____________________________
46.0
46.0 46.2
6.0
6.0 6.3
1977____________________________
47.5
47.5 53.0
6.3
6.1 10.8
~A ---------------
1978 (A) ---------------
49.2
49.2 ------------
7.2
7.2 ------------
1978
44.6
44.3 46.7
4.8
4.7 4
7
4 to 3:
.
1976____________________________
43.0
42.6 47.5
5.4
5.6 3.2
1977____________________________
44.0
43.4 49.3
6.7
6.6 5.5
1978 ~A ---------------
43.1
43.1 ------------
6.3
6.8 ------------
1978(B)__________---------------
42.0
41.6 41.4
5.6
5.2 3.8
5 to 4:
1976____________________________
37.0
36.4 39.9
3.2
3.2 3.0
1977____________________________
37.0
36.4 41.7
4.9
4.9 4.7
1978 ~A ---------------
40.0
42.1 37.0
6.3
6.3 5.5
1978(B)________________
37.5
37.0 36.0
4.8
4.4 3.6
6to5-
1974 ----------------------------
32.5
32.4 33.2
2.0
2.0 1.8
1977____________________________
32.5
33.3 32.0
2.9
2.9 1.9
1978(A)_________________________
32.5
31.3 33.8
2.6
2.6 2.5
1978 B _________________________
32.9
32.7 34.1
3.0
2.8 3.1
Totals:
1976_ _____________________
40.7
40.7
41.0
3.8
4.2 3. 1
1977______________________
41.7
41.7
42.3
5.3
5.3 4.8
1978 (A)___________________
39.0
39.9
31.3
4.7
4.9 2.8
1978 B ___________________
38.4
38.7
35.9
4.1
4.1 3.4
BY CONE
PD:
1976_____________________________
48.5
48.4
50.1
5.3
5.3 4.8
1977-----------------------------
49.8
49.8
------------
6.2
6.2 ------------
1978 (A
)_________________________
41.0
39.0
43.0
2.0
2
0 2
0
1978 (B)-------------------------
POL:
44.8
44.8
------------
2.6
.
.
2.6 ------------
1 976 -----------------------------
41.2
41.4
35.5
5.2
5.3 4.1
1977_____________________________
41.9
41.9
41.9
6.0
6.0 6.7
1978 (A --------------
41.1
41.1
40.7
5.2
5.3 4.0
1978 (B)-------------------------
38.4
38.4
35.7
4.4
4.5 3.2
E/C:
1976_____________________________
38.7
38.8
36.3
4.2
4.2 3.5
1977_____________________________
40.7
40.5
44.0
5.2
.5.2 4.7
1978 ((A))
--------------
40.5
40.5
------------
5.4
5.4 ------------
1978(______________
ADM:
37.8
38.1
36.1
4.1
4.3 3.1
1976_____________________________
41.6
40.7
44.5
3.0
3.0 2.8
1977_____________________________
41.9
41.9
41.8
4.0
4.0 4.0
1978 (A)
--------------
41.7
41.7
------------
4.8
4.8 ------------
1978 (______________
CONS
:
40.3
40.1
42.1
3.7
3.7 3.7
1976_____________________________
38.5
38.4
38.6
3.1
3.1 3.1
1977_____________________________
40.4
40.1
41.9
4.4
4.5 3.8
1978 (A)
_________________________
37.0
39.3
31.7
3.4
3.7 2.7
1978 (B)-------------------------
SPT:
47.1
37.3
35.9
4.0
3.9 3.9
1976-----------------------------
49.2
49.2
------------
7.3
7.3 ------------
1977-----------------------------
39.0
39.0
------------
2.5
2.5 ------------
1978 (A --------------
1978 8 --------------
UNCONED:
1978 (A) -------------------------
1978 (B) -------------------------
Totals:
1976-----------------------
40.7
40.7
41.0
3.8
4.2 3.1
1977-----------------------
41.7
41.7
42.3
5.3
5.3 4.8
1978 A)-------------------
39.0
39.9
31.3
4.7
4.9 2.8
1978 B)-------------------
38.4
38.7
35.9
4.1
4.1 3.4
I Does not include service at equivalent grade of previous pay plan for FSO's by lateral entry.
Source: Per/mgt. and per/PE.
Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
30
Number
Percent of
eligible
Number
Percent of
eligible
Number Percent of
eligible
2 to 1:
BY CLASS
1977-----------------------------
50
21.2
48
21.1
2 22.2
1978
(A)-------------------------
10
4.1
9
3.8
1 14.3
1978
(B)-------------------------
20
9.3
20
9116
------------------------
3 to 2:
1977
----------------------------
70
14.1
68
14.0
2 15.4
-
1978 (A)-------------------------
21
4.0
21
4.1
------------------------
1978 (B) -------------------------
35
7.4
35
7.6
------------------------
4 to 3:
1977-----------------------------
143
19.5
141
1978 (A) -------------------------
25
3.5
24
1978
(B)-------------------------
90
11.5
89
5 to 4:
1977-----------------------------
105
19.0
99
20.1
6 10.2
1978
(A)
-----------------------
13
2.5
12
2.6
1 1.6
1978
--
(B)-------------------------
92
14.7
86
15.4
6 8.8
6to5?
1977_____________________________
77
22.2
73
22.3
4 21.1
1978
(A)_________________________
42
12.0
41
12.5
1 4.2
1978
(B)_________________________
92
25.1
85
24.9
7 28.0
Totals:
1977----------------------- 445
18.8
429
19.1
16 13.0
1978 (A) ------------------- 111
4.7
107
4.8
4 3.0
1978 (B) ------------------- 329
13.4
315
13.6
14 9.7
BY CONE
PD:
1977_____________________________ 20
37.0
19
36.5
1 50.0
1978 (A) ------------------------- 2
5.1
2
5.4
------------------------
1978 (B) ------------------------- 3
7.0
3
7.3
------------------------
POL:
1977_____________________________ 178
18.2
173
18.4
5 14.3
1978 (A)_________________________ 44
(
)
4.8
43
4.9
1 2.9
_________________________ 122
1971
B
F
C
13.1
116
13.0
6 17.6
/
:
1977_____________________________
125
21.3
121
21.4
4 18.2
1978 (A) -----------
25
4.0
25
4.3
------------------------
1978 B ___________
77
12.1
75
12.3
2 7.7
ADM:
1977_____________________________
64
16.2
62
16.9
2 7.1
1978 ___________ 17
4.1
16
4.2
1 3.1
1978 ___________ 76
17.8
72
18.4
4 10.8
CONS:
1977_____________________________
56
16.3
52
16.9
4 11.1
1978
(A)_________________________
22
6.1
20
6.3
2 4.9
1978
(B)_________________________
51
12.1
49
13.1
2 4.4
SPT:
1977----------------------------
2
20.0
2
20.0
------------------------
1978
(A)-------------------------
1
11.1
1
11.1
------------------------
1978
(8) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals:
1977_______________________ 445 18.8 429 19.1 16 13.0
1978 (A)___________________ 111 4.7 107 4.8 4 3.0
1978 B ___________________ 329 13.4 315 13.6 14 9.7
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Total
Non-
minorities Minorities
Total
Non-
minorities Minorities
BY CLASS
2 to 1:
1977-----------------------------
49.4
49.5
49.5
4.2
4.3
2.5
1978 (A)------------------------
46.9
47.0
46.0
3.1
3.9
4.0
1978 (B) -------------------------
47.9
47.9
------------
3.8
3.8
-----------
3 to 2:
1977-----------------------------
47.5
47.9
46.5
f.3
6.3
5.0
1978 (A)
49.2
49.2
------------
7.2
7.2
------------
1978 B
44.6
44.6
------------
4.8
4.8
---------- --
4to3:
1977-----------------------------
44.0
44.0
42.5
6.7
6.6
8
0
1978 ((A))
43.1
42.6
56.0
6.3
6.3
.
6.0
1978 (B)----------
42.0
41.9
36.0
5.6
5.1
2.0
5 to 4:
1977-----------------------------
37.0
37.0
37.2
4.9
5.0
4.3
1918
.
(A)
40.0
41.1
44
0
6
3
6
2
6
0
1978
B
37.5
37.1
.
36.0
.
4.8
.
4.4
.
4
0
6 to 5:
.
1977-----------------------------
32.5
33.1
35.3
2.9
2.7
4.6
1978 (A)-------------------------
32.5
32.6
29.0
2.6
2.6
2.0
1978(B) -------------------------
32.9
32.9
33.6
3.0
2.9
1.9
Totals:
1977-----------------------
41.7
41.7
39.9
5;3
5.3
4.6
1978 (A) -------------------
39.0
38.9
43.6
43,
4.7
4.5
1978 (B) --------------------
38.7
38.4
34.8
4.1
4.1
2.8
BY CONE
PD:
1977-----------------------------
49.8
50.0
46.0
6.2
6.3
3.0
1978(A)-------------------------
41.0
41.0
------------
2.0
2.0
------------
1978 B)-------------------------
POL:
44.8
44.8
------------
2.6
2.6
------------
1977-----------------------------
41.9
41.8
45.4
6.0
6.0
6.0
1978 (A). -------------
41.1
41.0
46.0
5.2
5.2
4.0
1978 (B) -------------
F/C:
38.6
38.6
32.3
4.4
4.5
2.7
1977-----------------------------
40.7
40.8
36.2
5.2
5.1
4.5
1978 (A)-------------------------
40.5
40.5
------------
5.4
5.4
1978 (B)-------------------------
ADM:
38.1
38.2
34.5
4.1
4.2
----.-------
5
j.--
1977-----------------------------
41.9
41.9
40.5
4.0
4.0
4
5
1978 (SA)
~
41.7
42.5
29.0
4.8
4:9
.
2.0
1978 `B
CONS:
40.1
40.7
37.2
3.7
3.8
2.4
1977-----------------------------
40.4
40.9
35.0
4.4
4.5
3.0
1978 A)
37.0
35.6
50.0
3.4
3.2
6
0
1978 B)
SPT:
37.3
37.5
37.5
4.0
4.0
.
3.5
1977-----------------------------
39.0
39.0
------------
2.5
2.5
------------
1978 (A) -------------------------
58.0
58.0
------------
9.0
9.0
------------
Totals:
1977-----------------------
41.7
41.7
39.9
5.3
5.3
4.6
1978 (A)-------------------
39.0
38.9
43.6
4.7
4.7
4.5
1978 B -------------------
38.7
38.4
34.8
4.1
4.1
2.8
I Does not include service at equivalent grade of previous pay plan for FS0's by lateral entry.
Source: Per/mgL and per/pe.
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32
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What is the justification for preserving early re-
tirement rights for Foreign Service personnel who are being con-
verted to civil service only when they are not going to have the
hardships of this worldwide service? Why did you draw the distinc-
tion in this bill ?
Mr. READ. They have the option, Mrs. Schroeder, to retain their
Foreign Service retirement benefits in all of its features or to convert
to the civil service retirement system which does not contain that
feature. They have the option.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That could cause us a little problem with the Civil
Service as you well know.
Mr. READ. Yes; but OPM has approved the bill and this provision.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What do you think about allowing the grievance
system to be a negotiable item. rather than mandated through the
legislation ?
Mr. READ. It has been legislated for how many years now, Jim? Five
years. We have found it highly satisfactory and we are making some
improvements in that chapter 11.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But "we" are management. What about the
employees?
Mr. READ. You will, of course, be hearing from the representatives
of AFSA but we have been in very close consultation with them on
the provisions of change which are incorporated in chapter 11.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have since found out that the Foreign Service
retirement fund has an unfunded liability and part of this process
requires that we clarify how much of it is unfunded and how much it
would take to fund it fully. Is that in the bill? Am I correct in under-
standing that?
Mr. READ. Let me ask Jim Michel to help us on that if you would.
STATEMENT OF JAMES H. MICHEL, DEPUTY LEGAL ADVISER,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. MICHEL. The Foreign Service retirement and disability fund
was established in 1924. It is financed by employee contributions and
by employer contributions. In addition, legislation enacted some years
ago provides for periodic incremental appropriations to maintain the
normal cost of the fund and to provide for situations where new bene-
fits are added or other changes result in cost increases.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Has that happened ?
Mr. MICHEL. There have been changes such as the addition of new
employees. Some AID employees were brought into the system a few
years ago and there was a supplemental appropriation to cover in-
creased costs to the fund because there were these additional em-
ployees for whom there had not been employer contributions over the
years prior to their entering into the retirement system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But are you short right now?
Mr. MICHEL. I don't know the present status of the fund. We would
have to provide that.
[The document referred to follows:]
The unfunded liability of the Foreign Service Retirement and Disability
Fund is currently $2 billion. This compares with the $124 billion unfunded
liability of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund.
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To further elaborate on retirement system costs and financing, the following
is supplied :
Question. How much does the Foreign Service Retirement System cost?
Answer. Costs of retirement systems are usually expressed in two parts :
normal cost and unfunded liability. In general terms, normal cost is the cost
of benefits currently being earned and unfunded liability is the sum of obliga-
tions previously incurred for prior service and for new laws that have not been
financed.
The normal cost of the Foreign Service Retirement System is currently 21.8
percent of the participant payroll or $72.6 million. If this amount were deposited
in the Fund annually, at interest, it would be sufficient to pay for benefits to
be earned from this point forward at current benefit and payroll levels.
The current unfunded liability of the System is $2 billion. This debt has arisen
from several factors. One Is that in the middle 1950's the Government made
no contributions to the Retirement Fund, and not until 1977 did current em-
ployee and Government contributions cover the full Foreign Service normal
cost. Another reason for the growth of the unfunded liability was that its very
existence meant that the System was losing interest each year on funds that
were supposed to be on deposit in the Fund. This loss, compounded over time,
has been significant. This situation has now been corrected as indicated in the
next answer.
The above cost figures are based on estimates made by the Actuary in the
Treasury Department. The Treasury makes a formal actuarial evaluation of
the Foreign Service Retirement System every five years. The next one is sched-
uled to be printed In July 1979. The Actuary updates estimates of the normal
cost and the unfunded liability of the System every year or oftener as required.
Question. How Is the System financed?
Answer. Money to pay benefits as they fall due is obtained from the following
sources :
(1) Money In the Fund not needed to pay current benefits is invested in
Government securities which earn interest which Is credited to the Fund. Cur-
rently, new investments of monies in the Fund are earning better than 9 per-
cent annually.
(2) An amount equivalent to interest on the unfunded liability is paid into
the Fund annually by the Treasury Department-$104 million for fiscal year
1980.'
(3) The cost of benefits attributable to military service is paid into the Fund
annually by the Treasury Department-$8.8 million for fiscal year 1980.'
(4) Unfunded liability created by pay raises, benefit changes and expansion of
coverage to new groups of employees is amortized in full over 30 years. Appro-
priations for this purpose are made annually to the Fund-$45.2 million for
fiscal year 1980.'
(5) The normal cost of the Foreign Service Retirement System is met by the
contribution of 7 percent from the salary of every participant plus a matching
amount from the employing agency (State, USICA and AID), with the balance,
7.8 percent of payroll, being met by direct appropriations to the Fund. This appro-
priation is made pursuant to section 865(b) of the Foreign Service Act added in
1976 by Public Law 94-350.
Question. How does the Foreign Service normal cost and unfunded liability
compare with the comparable Civil Service costs?
Answer. The Civil Service normal cost is approximately 14 percent and the
Foreign Service normal cost is 21.8 percent of covered payroll. The Civil Service
unfunded liability is $124 billion which compares with a figure of $2 billion for
the Foreign Service. (Civil Service costs are based upon static economic assump-
tions while Foreign Service costs are based upon projections which assume contin-
ued inflation.)
Question. Why Is the Foreign Service normal cost higher than the Civil Service
normal cost?
Answer. Apart from the different economic assumptions used in making the
computations, the higher Foreign Service normal cost is attributable to the fol.
lowing differences between the Systems :
1 These financing arrangements (items 2, 3, and 4) are identical to those In force under
the Civil Service Retirement System and were Initiated in 1971 pursuant to Public Law
91-201. Payments under items 2 and 3 above are beine phased In: 10 percent of the
amounts due were paid in 1971 with Increasing amounts paid In each year thereafter
with the full amount becoming payable In 1980 and in each fecal year thereafter.
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The Foreign Service is a career service and many of those entering intend to
remain in the Service throughout their careers. This is not true of many
persons who enter the Civil Service. The result is that approximately six times
as many persons who enter the Foreign Service at age 25 earn a retirement
benefit as do persons entering the Civil Service Retirement System at age 25.
When individuals withdraw from the retirement system without earning a retire-
ment benefit, they receive a refund of their own contributions with a minimum
amount of interest. The Government contributions made on their behalf remain
on deposit in the retirement fund for the benefit of those who remain in the Sys-
tem. Government contributions to the Civil Service System benefit a much smaller
proportion of the work force, and therefore, the average amount per employee
that must be deposited is less.
2. SALARY PROGRESSION
The Foreign Service salary progression ratio (entrance to highest salary for
a typical career) is over twice that for the Civil Service. Therefore, the employee
contributions made at the same rate in the two Systems represent a smaller pro-
portion of benefits received in the Foreign Service System. However, many in the
Civil Service, such as management interns and similar appointees have a career
advancement pattern similar to that in the Foreign Service. Such personnel in
the Civil Service have their retirement costs averaged with many others with
low career advancement rates, and thus the average cost, or normal cost, of the
large heterogeneous Civil Service Retirement System is lower than the compa-
rable Foreign Service cost.
3. EARLY RETIREMENT AND 2 PERCENT MULTIPLIER
The average retirement age for participants in the Foreign Service Retirement
System is about two years younger than in the Civil Service System. This is
attributable to the Foreign Service selection out system, to the early voluntary
retirement age and to the mandatory retirement age of 60. In addition, Foreign
Service retirees live, on the average, one year longer than Civil Service retirees.
The result is that the average Foreign Service retiree receives an annuity three
years longer than the average Civil Service retiree and this contributes to a
higher average retirement system cost. Also the Foreign Service annuity equals
a straight 2 percent times average salary which is slightly higher than provided
by the general Civil Service annuity computation formula, although it is identical
to the formula used under the CIA retirement system and is less generous than
the formula used for the FBI and other law enforcement personnel, fire fighters,
and Secret Service personnel.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What would happen to the people who will transfer
to the civil service?
Mr. MICHEL. The employee contributions would be transferred.
Employer contributions under present law remain in the retirement
fund.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So we could end up with a shortfall in the employer
contribution for the transfer?
Mr. MICHEL. I don't think we are talking about substantial sums
either way. 11
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We might if we were talking about the early retire-
ment provision going with them.
Mr. MICHEL. Persons who remain in the Foreign Service retirement
and disability system continue to contribute to the Foreign Service
fund and their annuity is paid from that fund. In other words, they are
in that system now while they are in the Foreign Service, they simply
would not transfer.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If they are converted into the civil service, you will
keep them in the Foreign Service retirement system?
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Mr. MICHEL. In the Foreign Service retirement and disability
system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So there won't be a transfer?
Mr. MICHEL. No.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have a lot more questions, but why not let some-
body else have a crack at it.
Mr. FASCELL. At this point in the record let me inquire how the
actuarial determination of the fund is made.
Mr. READ. It is governed by the annual appropriation process, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that but how is the actuarial determina-
tion made if it is made?
Mr. READ. We have Bob Hull here who has that information.
Mr. FASCELL. I mean do you have outside actuaries or do you do it
internally or at all?
Mr. HuLL.1 The actuary from the Treasury Department evaluates
our system.
Mr. FASCELL. How often?
Mr. HULL. Under the law, it is required to be done every 5 years.
Mr. FASCELL. When was the last one?
Mr. HULL. Five years ago. The new one is due, I understand, any day
now.
Mr. FASCELL. The new one is due any day. Would you furnish the
committee with a copy of that, please, when it comes in.
Mr. HULL. I hope he was correct when he told me that the other day.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, whenever it comes in.
Mr. Secretary ?
Mr. READ. Indeed we will.2
Mr. FASCELL. All right.
Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. No questions.
Mr. FASCELL. I want to say we are delighted that we have experts
here for various facets of this bill-Mr. Leach, of course, and then
Mrs. Schroeder who is an expert on management and labor relations
and I am one of those generals who knows less and less about more
and more.
Mr. Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I want to ask this question. The selection out process
certainly seems to be an effective way of maintaining the high caliber
of the oreign Service by releasing those employees whose perform-
ance has been substandard. Has this provision in your perception
been followed in a healthy competitive spirit?
Mr. READ. It has, Mr. Pritchard, but it has gone through rather
drastic change when you look back over the history of the last 10
years. When I left the Department in early 1969, there were probably
150 persons who were selected out under this provision of the law for
substandard performance yearly. It fell to zero in 1974-75 in part
because of successful legal challenges.
1 Robert Hull, Jr., Bureau of Personnel, Department of State.
'The material referred to was subsequently submitted and is retained- in committee
files.
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Mr. PRITCHARD. I understand that. Is there any question in your
mind that you can point to the record and say this has had a very
healthy effect on the State Department?
Mr. READ. There is no doubt whatsoever.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Maybe we should extend that to congressional areas.
Mr. Chairman, those are all the questions I have.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I will be happy to follow my minority leader over
there.
Mr. LEACH. In reading some of the summary material, Mr. Secre-
tary, one thing really struck me as odd-if not bizarre-in connection
with this concept of an SFS officer in the Senior Foreign Service. The
people who were 'attempting to design 'a new program were probably
saying to themselves, let's have something that looks comparable to
what the Civil Service has done with the SE'S.
And yet there is this oddity that if a Foreign Service officer wants
to be considered for the SFS, he has. to indicate he wants to be con-
sidered. Then he has only 5 years to be promoted, in which case that
FS-1 officer will say to himself, "I have been an FS-1 for only 1 or 2
years, therefore I won't ask to be considered." He has to make such a
judgment when, in actuality, he would like to be considered. Now
there might be an argument because of the vulnerability of going into
the SFS, that an FS-1 might not want to be considered at all times,
but I think most people like to be promoted.
You are putting aburden on that FS-1 that is strange and I don't
know of an analogy in the private sector or in the Government sector.
Why, in heaven's name, once a guy has been named an FS-1, won't he
be immediately eligible to be promoted? You are putting an odd
burden on him. Will you explain your reasoning behind doing that?
Mr. READ. I would like to do so. You will be able to judge for your-
selves that this senior threshold provision in its present posture is
one of the provisions which commands the widest and deepest sup-
port in the bill. We have had for some years, Mr. Leach, a senior
threshold on paper. It was meant to be rigorous. It was meant to be
different from other selection boards. It was meant to separate, to use
the military analogy, the colonels from the star rank, the senior
members of the Service. It did not do so. It has worked as every
other selection board in the Service.
The tombstone promotion, so called, of people who 'have come to
the end of time in class and yet no one wants to say their aspirations
are beyond their reach have been, unhappily, a phenomenon that we
have had to live with. What we are doing by this so-called window,
which is borrowed directly from the passover techniques in the mili-
tary service, is to say when you become an FS-1 you will have a time
in class that will be set by the Secretary, which will be, say, 10 years.
When you think that you are ready for promotion you so indicate
and then you have 5 years of eligibility. This will be of considerable
significance to the selection boards, it will tell the selection boards
something about that person as to when he or she thinks that the
member is ready for promotion.
Mind you, these are members of the Service who have been in for
years and have a very full record. They can set the 5-year eligibility
clock running in the first year when they get to FS-1 or in the last
year in class or in a middle year, but they can't extend their time in
class by doing so. .
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Mr. LEACH. Mr. Secretary, I can accept the concept of the threshold
and the analogy to the military. But I am wondering as to the need
to burden the individual with saying "I am not ready yet," "now I am
ready," and then giving him only five opportunities after that. Why
would not all FS-1's be eligible to be promoted to the SFS at any
time?
Mr. READ. They can be if they think they are waterwalkers, to use
the jargon of the Service. They can opt to be.
Mr. LEACH. Isn't it presumptuous of someone to ask for immediate
consideration?
Mr. READ. It might or might not be depending on his or her com-
petency and performance level. We don't want to compete them
before they are ready to compete.
Most members of the Service wouldn't declare their eligibility in
year one or until they established a track record at the new grade, but
they would be able to do so if they wished.
Mr. LEACH. Could l ask one other question?
Mr. READ. I have been in and out of this system. I have been in many
other occupations. I find that there is really something rather cruel
about the inability of the Service at present to tell a member that he or
he should start looking for a second career in a timely fashion. That
sounds harsh in a way and yet other systems do it. If you tell someone
that when they are 53, 54, it is not as humane as if it were done at an
earlier point.
Harry.
Mr. BARNES. If I can add just one comment. What seems to me most
important here is in our stress giving more responsibility. What to
me is the most attractive feature is that it does place a significant
amount of responsibility on the individual to make some decisions
where the individual is well qualified to make them.
Mr. LEACH. Let me just ask one other question on a somewhat dif-
ferent subject. Most of this bill deals with the Foreign Service, briefly
touching on ambassadorial level. There have been many of us from
time to time who are concerned with the manner in which ambassa-
dorial appointments are made and there is something in here that
addresses that. Can you tell me right now what percentage of ambas-
sadors are noncareer?
Mr. READ. Yes. 25 percent.
Mr. LEACH. That is pretty much historical?
Mr. READ. No; it is not historically. This is a figure agreed on by
President Carter and Secretary Vance and they have kept to it very
religiously. At the end of the last administration the figure was, I
believe, 33 or 34 percent.
Mr. LEACH. Do you think an arbitrary percentage ought to be
legislated rather than
Mr. READ. No. I think it becomes too inflexible if it were in law, and
I think it would be an intrusion on the President's constitutional pre-
rogatives to try to legislate that.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Gray.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to pick up on some of the questions that my colleague.
Mrs. Schroeder, was emphasizing. I would think that the Foreign
Service personnel reform legislation would provide an excellent op-
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38
portunity to incorporate some strong commitment of EEO but after
I view the legislation I don't see any real strong specific language
which illustrates that concern. Is there something that maybe I
missed?
Mr. READ. Yes; Mr. Gray. We have put it as the second objective
of the bill in section 101 (b) (2). The Service and the Department are
covered, I might add, :by the equal opportunity provisions in the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978 so we do not need new machinery, but
we have given recognition in a prominent fashion to a goal which has
been a goal of this administration but is now stated in the statute.
Mr. GRAY. What would be the specific steps that the Department
will take to improve the number of women and minorities within the
services.
Mr. READ. Secretary Vance alluded to those earlier.
Mr. GRAY. I am sorry I was late.
Mr. READ. We have essentially two affirmative action programs, one
at the junior level for minorities, and one at mid levels for minorities
and women and their goals are the result of an executive level task
force which Secretary Vance set up in 1977. As he said earlier, we
have met those goals in the junior ranks in the first two years of
operation here. We have not done well in the .mid level areas but we
are making strenuous efforts to do so.
Mr. GRAY. What do you call that program? Does it have a name?
Mr. READ. They are called the mid level and junior level affirmative
action programs, and I would be glad to send literature and statistics.
Mr. GRAY. Is there a junior level?
Mr. READ. Yes. We have been very mindful of these programs, and
I think statistics will bear that out. While no one is ever satisfied
with statistics per se as the sole valid indicator, I think there have
been rather substantial gains in the last 2 or 3 years.
Mr. GRAY. Can you tell me how many Foreign Service officers there
are in the Foreign Service?
Mr. READ. Yes. 3,600. Minorities constitute only 5 percent. It is
very low. Ten years ago it was 1 percent so we are starting from a
very, very low rate of performance. In terms of women, for instance,
10 or 15 years ago it was 5 percent. It is now 10 percent but again
those statistics are misleading because in the upper levels the repre-
sentative nature of the Service is not nearly what it is at the more
junior levels.
Mr. GRAY. How many minorities do you have at the Deputy or
Assistant Secretary level at the Department?
Mr. READ. I would have to supply that for the record.
Mr. GRAY. I would appreciate it if you would.'
I think you mentioned a written exam when talking to Mrs.
Schroeder or a test that is taken. Can you give me an indication
of how women and minorities make out on that test?
Mr. READ. I will ask Director General Barnes to comment on that in
a moment but I am pleased to say that our recruitment efforts have
been heavily oriented toward women and minorities in the last couple
of years in terms of the visits to college campuses, university campuses,
and the percentage of applications in both women and minority ranks
has improved satisfactorily. Harry can probably provide more details.
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39
Mr. BARNES. As far as minorities are -concerned, our data are lim-
ited simply because it was only starting last year that we were allowed
by the Civil Service Commission to collect data on minorities as such.
But to try to give you some sense in that field, the number of black
individuals taking the Foreign Service exam, which is given annually
in December, a year ago last December ran around 550. This last De-
cember the number taking the exam ran around 600. This was at a
period when the overall level of people taking the exam, all categories,
declined by about 10 percent and this reflects the recruitment efforts
which Mr. Reed was referring to just now.
We have had an increase in the number of people passing the exam
as well. I mentioned earlier the oral exam. We have adopted new pro-
cedures.this year to extend the oral exam from a type of exam which
lasts 11/2 hours or so to a full-d-ay exam. That has been in effect only
for a couple of months, we don't know yet what the results are going to
be there. We want to see, of course, particularly how that has an effect,
if it does have an effect, in terms of women and minorities.
What I can provide for you over a longer period of time would be
data as far as women in the Foreign Service Officer Corps is con-
cerned; that is, the recruitment. Figures on minorities would have to
be limited to just these last 2 years because that is all we have the
data for.
Mr. GRAY. I would be interested in knowing what the purpose of the
oral exam is as well as the rest of the written exams because often
exams can be weighted in such a way as to exclude people and how the
judgment is made in evaluation is made of the oral exam and also that
becomes very subjective.
I have some documents on the exam review and it shows that the oral
exam was weighted 23 in 1976 but in 1977 it was weighted 36. Gen-
eral background in English is weighted 7 in 1976 but suddenly in 1977
it is weighted 24. It seems to me that those kinds of questions are ex-
tremely relevant to terms of minority and recruitment.
I also have looked at some of the sample questions on functional
background and thank God I don't want to go into the Foreign Serv-
ice because I don't know if I could pass this exam despite the fact
that I have a bachelor degree, two masters degrees, and two-thirds of
a Ph. D. One question concerned two films, "Z" and "State of Seige,"
where one needs to know that Costa Gauras has emerged as a contem-
porary director who has best mastered the technique of political situa-
tions in the tension-filled feature films and that he has moved the
political film to one with appeal to a mass audience. What is the rele-
vance of that to serving in the Foreign Service? It seems to me if you
are a great movie buff you would perhaps know the answer to that if
you spent a lot of time going to movies.
Mr. BARNES. Let me start with your more general question.
As I indicated earlier, what we attempted to do with the written ex-
amination is to get at a sense of a person's familiarity with a number of
factors which we think apply to all fields in the Foreign Service, and
I mentioned just as an example American culture, American history.
I suspect the questions you quoted are ones related to ICA's work in the
cultural and informational field. We are trying to see what the level
of person's knowledge and familiarity is in that particular area which
would help us in the assignment process once someone comes into the
Foreign Service in terms of directing them toward one field or another.
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On the oral examination, if you like, I would be glad to provide more
information and detail.
Mr. GRAY. I really would like to see a very clear detail because I don't
see the real advantages of a question like that. I don't see any questions
down here about chitlings and Mother's Day which would be extremely
relevant, I think, to a functional background, and that is what comes
under functional background.
Now. because somebody does not ! know the director who has made
this tremendous movie in the art field in terms of "Z" and "State of
Siege," does that mean that they are somehow functionally deficient or
does it just perhaps mean that they have not had a great opportunity
in their life to spend a lot of time seeing films?
I don't think that there is a correlation there and I have seen too much
of this kind of stuff utilized to exclude people from getting into posi-
tions. I think that as I look at some of the other questions, if each of
the foreign groups of artists could collaborate on a work-which group
would probably create an American folk opera based on themselves
from the early history of the Nation and then there is a collection of
one, two, three, four, five categories with about four people per cate-
gory. You know, what relevance does that have to being functional?
When you look at the fact that in 1976 that kind of background was
given a 7 weight and in 1977 it was given a 24 weight, I wonder what it
is given in 1979. It seems to me that I would very much like to see the
specifics and understand the criteria of these kinds of tests because it
looks to me very much like they can be utilized to exclude some of the
various kinds of categories of people who are not represented in our
Foreign Service who just don't have that opportunity.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. GRAY. Yes; I will yield to my colleague.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. From my experience looking at selection devices in
the private sector, we used to throw them out right and left, this thing
is a disaster. I used to have great joy in making up a test that was
given to United Airlines executives. Do you know what a gusset is? I
bet you don't. I bet the women do, but so what. I do find this offensive
and join the gentlemen in saying that may be part of your problem. It
is nice to have language in the bill but I think we have got to go to
the guts of the problem.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you. I certainly agree with my colleague particu-
larly when I look at the fact that some statistics here show that only 3
percent of blacks passed the examination, 8 percent Asian, 10 percent
American Indian. When we look at those kinds of questions, you know,
I really want to know what the real advantages of those questions are
in terms of whether a person can function in the Foreign Service,
whether they can represent this Nation abroad in various areas.
So I would like very much to know very specifically what this For-
eign Service personnel reform legislation is going to do in terms of a
commitment to EEO and also to know exactly how these tests are con-
ducted, what the judgments are and the evaluations because otherwise
I see it right now as being exclusionary.
Mr. READ. Mr. Gray, let me say I would very much welcome that
close scrutiny that both of you have just offered. We want to improve
these tests, get out irrelevant questions and get out the factors that
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have absolutely no basis of validity. We have very much in mind that
the Foreign Service should be, as this act says, representative of the
American people. But examination questions relate to implementation.
On a statutory matter, the references to merit principles appear
throughout the bill; the principles that were passed by the Congress
last year, including the EEO provisions, which apply in full to the
Foreign Service.
Mr. GRAY. I am not questioning whether there is an EEO umbrella.
I am sure there is. What I am questioning is how are we carrying it out
specifically, and are we enforcing it and general language that simply
says that we are committed to equal opportunity, we are committed to
affirmative action, we are committed to having a broad base repre-
sentation but not having the specifics there. That troubles me.
Three or four years ago as a member of an organization we met with
the then Director of the FBI who talked about the fact that minorities
in the FBI were relegated to clerical status for the most part and the
Assistant Director at the meetings said, "Well, you know we have a
test, we have these forms." We said could we look at the tests. On that
application form as well as the test, let me give you one example.
The application form which was about five pages long had one ques-
tion which said, "Has anyone in your family, going back to grand-
parents, ever been arrested ?" All right. Now I don't know if you know
anything about black folk, but just about every black person, if you go
back to the grandparent, particularly as to the days of discrimination
and segregation in the South, at one time or another probably got ar-
rested. So you automatically knocked out 50 percent of those qualifying
even though the grandson may have a law degree from Yale, can pass
all the cultural and functional, but because the grandparent was ar-
rested during a period of our history, he could not qualify as an agent
for the FBI and no one thought of that.
So I am simply saying to you I know there is an overarching um-
brella of commitment. Mr. Chairman, I want to see the specifics if
we are talking about reform legislation.
Mr. READ. We would welcome that.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. My understanding is you people -did not structure
the test yourself. Do you have some outside people that do the work on
this?
Mr. READ. We have used as a contractor the Educational Testing
Service. The results are looked at and scrutinized by many sectors of
the Department, employees and management, and the improvement
process has been an earnest one and a steady one. But I have no doubt
that procedures can be improved and we want to do so.
Mr. PRITCHARD. It was my understanding with the weighting you
have been doing in the last 2 years it has been one in which you hoped
to increase the numbers of minorities and women because if you had
no people take the tests, they say the tests are being changed so that
it is tougher if you are a white male.
Mr. READ. Those allegations have been made. Every effort is being
made to create equal opportunity in the truest sense. It is a difficult
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search and one that we need to pursue, and we need help and advice,
and we would welcome it. That is all I can say at this point.
Mr. BARNES. I have one other point. One of the reasons we have gone
to an expanded oral examination is to minimize the possibilities of the
sort of problems you are talking about going from 11/2 hours to a
whole day involving the candidates much more actively in the
procedure.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are you covered by the uniform guidelines of em-
ployment selection practices?
Mr. BARNES. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you think these exams meet those uniform
guidelines?
Mr. BARNES. I think they do, but we will have EEOC's comments.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Have you got any comments from EEOC?
Mr. BARNES. EEOC is now in the process of taking a look at some
of the things we are doing.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. They have not validated them at this point?
Mr. BARNES. They have evaluated our affirmative action program.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Most of it has been in-house as I understand.
When do you think that validation is going to be ready?
Mr. BARNES. I had a discussion about 3 weeks ago with Commis-.
sioner Rodriguez. I am waiting to hear from him again.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We will be watching that, too, I am sure.
Mr. GRAY. Mr. Secretary, you are, saying you will provide for us the
evaluation, exactly how your examinations are structured?
Mr. READ. With pleasure.
Mr. GRAY. Were the questions asked in the oral examination, why
they are asked, what background they are trying to portray because
I certainly don't want to injure or prevent any American, no matter
what their color or sex, from having an opportunity to pass into the
Foreign Service. We need all the qualified people. I am concerned
about white males, too, have quite a few of them that live in my dis-
trict, and I know they would want their Congressman to be con-
cerned about them but at the same time we are talking about positive
action to help minorities.
Certainly my colleague Mrs. Schroeder has pointed to one term that
I certainly would not know but I think that we can look at these
examinations very, very carefully. and make sure that they are in
balance, that they. are used properly, not done in such a way to exclude
people. Particularly we are talking, about minorities and other groups
in our society who have not historically had the opportunity to partici-
pate in the broader culture of much Of America.
You know, it was not until about 20 or 30 years ago that some of us
could go to the opera, you know, and so if you begin to start asking
those kinds of questions to make a judgment about whether one is
suited or has the ability to do a job, I think it is very questionable.
Like I said, if we are going to make these exams equitable, let's put
hopping johns down there, chitlings and Mother's Day. What does
that mean? I am sure there are white males who know what hop-
ping johns are.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, I think that obviously it is a very important
point for both committees. Therefore, what we must do in the course
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of the consideration of this bill is to get commitments from the various
elements of the administration to deal with this problem and then
make certain that the Congress exercises oversight to make sure that
the legislated policies are carried out. Therefore, I think that we need
to be as specific as possible with respect to the present thoughts and
motivations of this administration on the implementation of the var-
ious personnel policies that are being sought.
Let me ask you a question, Mr. Secretary. There has been considera-
ble concern over a long period of time and a great many studies, one
of them the Linehan study, dealing with the various cones in the De-
partment, morale problems, and whether or not this legislation should
deal with the process of upward and lateral mobility in the cones of
the Department.
Mr. READ. Those cones, for better or worse, were put into effect by
administrative action and can be altered by administrative action.
They have worked, as you know, Mr. Chairman, to advance certain
of the key elements of the Department that had been rated somewhat
less than generously before. But their worth is a matter of considerable
controversy as well as some related facets, particularly the zone ar-
rangements within the cones.
These are matters which can be dealt with administratively. I
would hope that one of the things that structural reform would clear
the path for would be a career development program worthy of its
name which would, with more clarity, facilitate lateral movement
within these internal divisions and I would hope that in due course
by the time one got to the senior threshold you would have served in
either the political or economic cones as well as the administrative
or consular cones, because each needs greater appreciation of the
other's problems and they are all essential parts of the Service's ef-
forts. That will be our highest priority following structural reform.
Mr. FASCELL I recognize, op course, we cannot deal with that
problem legislatively but that this is clearly an internal adminis-
trative function. I think it is important for us to understand that
this is the next major step within the Department, assuming this
legislation becomes law.
Mr. READ. Many of the members who have said that they will
support this bill have said so with the caveat that we must turn
greater attention to career development to make it a reality and that
would certainly be our intent.
Mr. FASCELL. I think we are all aware of and sensitive to the
dynamics of any bureaucracy. It is strictly human nature that if the
political cone is the way to become an ambassador, then everybody
is going to fight within the agency to get into that cone. Anybody
who is relegated to a less desirable cone is not going to be too happy
with it.
The same thing happens in the military. If you are in the Navy
you fight to get command of a ship because you know if you don't,
you are never going to be an admiral. I can't think of a more impor-
tant problem that would have to be addressed in order to improve
morale, if we enact a structure which gives you the basis to operate.
Mr. READ. I would agree fully with that. I believe it is simply
wrong to have someone coming up through a single career line sud-
52-083 0 - 80 - 4
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denly expected to be a good general manager without having appre-
ciated through experience the essential work that is done in other
components of the service.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me explore for just one additional moment the
incoming personnel. How are they assigned to various cones now?
Mr. READ. I will ask Harry to answer that.
Mr. BARNES. One footnote on the previous question first. We have
some preliminary work underway because we recognize that even if
nothing were to change we have to do a better job of providing this
variety of experience. We are thinking along the lines of what we are
calling a tentative major-minor type arrangement. One statistic, about
a third of our consular officers are now serving out of that, so we are
already moving in that direction.
Mr. FASCELL. You say about a third?
Mr. BARNES. About a third. We are trying to find some opportuni-
ties for the political officers to serve in the consular field so they can
get that kind of experience.
In terms of how we handle the individuals, one of the purposes as
I was implying earlier of the functional tests on the written examina-
tion is to get some idea of where we think people might best serve.
We give a tentative designation when they first come into the service.
We give the individuals a chance to comment on that tentative designa-
tion if they think it does not make sense.
Mr. FASCELL. Who is we?
Mr. BARNES. We, in the case of the junior officer branch of the
bureau personnel.
In addition, we think it important to give each of our new officers
a chance to work in the consular field because that underlies so much
of what we do all the way through. As you know well, better than
anybody else, we have had increasing needs for consular services so
we have that opportunity provided for junior officers.
In the first 4 years, and that is the period now set by statute before
a decision is granted to grant tenure to a new Foreign Service officer
candidate, there is at least one assignment in the tentative functional
field. At the time the individual is passed for tenure, we then go on to
the midcareer level confirming that field or if experience has shown
that that field does not make sense designating a new field.
Mr. FASCELL. When the prospective applicant or a new employee is
being considered for assignment, does he get a face-to-face discussion
with somebody in the Department?
Mr. BARNES. Yes. We do this with each new junior officer class.
There was a class, as a matter of fact, sworn in just last week and in
the course of the next couple days, to take that specific example, these
individuals will be told what are the assignments available for them,
given a chance to indicate what their preferences are, and have a
chance to talk with their counselors. We.may give them our views
and then get from them in effect a bid list. There will be the first,
second, third, and fourth preferences.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just was wondering
if we could put together a formula here. Maybe cones plus zones equal
clones.
Have any of you at the table worked in the consular field?
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Mr. BARNES. Yes. My first assignment I was a consular officer for
most of the time. My second assignment I was a consular officer all of
the time.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That may be the combat zone.
What percentage of each class do you think is apt to be selected out
for substandard performance each year and will that number be pre-
set? I heard what you said, a lot of people dribble along and suddenly
they are 55 and you tell them they are not going to make it. Are you
going to preset a number for selection out each year? How do you
change that phenomenon?
Mr. READ. I think it would be completely inequitable to have a preset
number. It has to be a function of the individual selection boards and
their recommendations. If I could just spend a moment on the selection
boards system because the committee addresed that with the Secretary
and we didn't really have a chance to expand on it. It has been called
"the worst system except any other that we have been able to think
of." These boards operate completely independent of management. I
think they are unique in the U.S. Government in that respect.
Their operations are confined to performance records. No one is au-
thorized to say a word to the boards or to get things before them that
are not in the record in an individual's file. Career members of the
boards are designated based on their records of excellent performance
and both management and labor must agree on their membership.
Public members are chosen from persons of great distinction and
breadth and they add a vital factor in my judgment in the operations
of the board. The precepts are worked over by management and labor
and are the result of painstaking efforts to point up the criteria and
the qualities that we hope and expect the boards to distinguish. It is a
process that has evolved over the years. It is one which is never static
because there are changes every year in the precepts in efforts to im-
prove their validity.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I understand that.:[ think it is still very difficult to
crank out the old boy network and I think we have to continue to work
on it. Would people who are denied grade step increases going to be
allowed any appeal?
Mr. READ. Yes, but only if there is an aggrievable issue, such as
something improper in their files to which they have full access.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So the files would be open.
Mr. READ. There is full access to one's own file.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What about placement assistance for officers who
where selected out?
Mr. READ. Thanks to the committee, last year we were authorized
to contract with a service which asfists such persons in finding second
careers.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Have they been successful?
Mr. READ. It is perhaps too early to make any final judgment, but
I think it has been something that we have desperately needed. We
have been in a horse and buggy age relying on two or three people
inside to do this sort of thing and they have just not known the oppor-
tunities that were available outside.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have such a series of questions and I am afraid
because of the time I should submit them for the record. I have been
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very concerned about the Hay study which we could discuss for 2
hours whether you need an agencywide bargaining unit. I find
that a little hard to swallow. I hear about how labor and management
are all together but I am not sure that it really works to put super-
visors in the same unit.
I have some questions as to why you need a Foreign Service labor
relations board rather than just subjecting your employees to the Fed-
eral Labor Relations Authority. Why do you have to create two, why
cannot we use the same? Mr. Chairman, do you want me to submit them
for the record?
Mr. FASCELL. Whatever.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Why not submit them for the record because I
have an idea they are going to be very difficult to deal with in a super-
ficial manner.
Mr. READ. Could I discuss two points? One you mentioned earlier,
whistle blowing. Every single feature in regard to protection of whistle
blowers that you wrote into the Civil Service Reform Act last year
applies to the Foreign Service stem to stern. Those merit principles
are incorporated in this bill. In addition to that we have a dissent
channel and an open forum process, and we feel that we are the van-
guard, not the rearguard, in this respect.
Second, on the reason why the Civil Service Reform Act's title VII
on labor-management relations is not applicable or germane to the
Foreign Service without major, adaptations, if you took the definitions
of supervisor and manager which are stated in that act, you would
probably have a Foreign Service' bargaining unit that would not
number more than a fraction of its present size. I don't know what the
exact percentage would be, but it would be an emaciated bargaining
unit because we have very junior personnel who in a technical sense
are doing supervisory duty abroad with Foreign Service nationals,
et cetera. There are, I think we can convince you, very good reasons
for separation on the fundamental issue.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Secretary, we will submit a lot of questions to
you and give you reasonable time to respond and then we would like
to evaluate those and perhaps follow up on the responses.
Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I think it would be safe to say that in the matter
of promotion and retention that the whole system does pretty well
hinge on the selection board. That is already true and it will be true.
Is that a fair thing to say?
Mr. READ. Yes. The boards will remain a cornerstone of the process.
Under the bill the boards will be asked to make recommendations on
some additional matters such as career extensions, limited renewable
career extensions where the needs of the service will be considered
as well and which will create a new extremely useful procedure. Some
of our senior officers have advocated making limited career extensions
the exclusive procedure for service at the top of the Foreign Service.
We did not want to go that far with untested procedure but we think
that it provides a creative new procedure.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Michel.
Mr. MICHEL. I just wanted to emphasize that this limited career
extension feature again rests upon action by the selection boards in
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evaluating the performance of the senior personnel to whom that fea-
ture would be applicable. It is not something outside the selection
board process.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I would like-and you can do it privately, per-
sonally, in whatever way-but I would like to be walked through the
whole scene of the selection of selection boards, of whom they are
composed, how you arrive at them. They really hold the fate of the
Foreign Service in their hands. Let me indicate some of my own areas
expressed by my colleagues.
For example, I am inclined to believe that there was a time not in
the not too distant past in the Foreign Service when women were
thought to be primarily cultural fixtures and so like when you are
testing a woman you know she used to know about the opera or if she
does not she'does not stand a very good chance. You have had a tradi-
tional service that has been comprised primarily of white male gradu-
ates of certain particular institutions
Mrs. SCHROEDER. None of which are in the South.
Mr. BUCHANAN. None of which are in the South.
I am sure that many of them are excellent because those are excel-
lent institutions and there are many excellent people in the Foreign
Service. Then to the extent that those people may have influenced or
even dominated the selection board process, like the gentleman from
Colorado I cannot help but think that has had some impact upon the
fate of such women and minorities and graduates of the University
of Alabama who may have been trying to get somewhere in the For-
eign Service.
This is negatively stated because it is a concern for the future, not
a criticism of the past, you understand. I really would like rather sub-
stantial reassurance that there is a present effort and there may be an
ongoing effort to correct any deficiencies that may have arisen even
out of that situation to the extent that I have fairly described them.
Mr. READ. Good. Let me add a historical footnote. When the 1946
act was passed there were 856 Foreign Service officers. I don't know
what the Ivy League percentage was at that point but it must have
been gargantuan. Most of them had served exclusively abroad and
didn't know the United States. One of the changes in the 1946 act was
that Foreign Service officers in the future should be drawn from all
walks of life. The goal was set some years ago. We think that we have
a more precise and contemporary set of goals here. In terms of the
operations of the selection boards I would like very much to get your
advice, Mr. Buchanan, and would welcome it. .
Mr. BARNES. We would be glad to provide that walk through. We
do make a conscious effort to see that women and minorities.are rep-
resented as members of the board.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Very good. I really would appreciate the walk
through. I don't know whether it would be useful for the record.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes; it will be useful for the record. Why don't we
wait until we get to that section of the bill and we can analyze both
the proposed new law and the old law.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Yes.
Mr. READ. Side by side copies will be available.
Mr. FASCELL. What I would like to do now is start at section 104
of the bill, so let's turn to the book. We will skip the general pro-
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visions in 101, 102 and 103. Is there any major substantive change
in 104?
Mr. READ. Yes. If I might, I will ask Mr. Michel to pick up at this
point.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Michel.
Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Chairman, there are two features of this section
which are departures from existing law which I would like to ce'l to
your attention. First of all, the United States has become a party to
two major international agreements on the subject of consular re-
lations and diplomatic relations since enactment of the 1946 acts.
These of course are the Vienna Diplomatic Convention and the Vienna
Consular Convention which are in force for most of the nations of
the world today. Those are sources of identification of consular and
diplomatic functions. That is a new feature.
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me. Would that not be covered by just saying
"international agreements"?
Mr. MICHEL. As a matter of emphasis and specificity
Mr. FASCELL. That is the reason you mentioned the two.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the other one?
Mr. MICHEL. That is to recognize the role of the Foreign Service in
providing guidance which is in paragraph 2 of section 104, appearing
on page 8 of the draft bill. This has been a traditional function of the
Foreign Service but it was not explicitly recognized as such in the
existing law
Mr. FASCELL. So you have given it a statutory base?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Let's go to the next section. Any substantive
change in section 201 ?
Mr. MICHEL. This is a consolidation of a couple of existing laws and
I don't think makes any substantive change. It just pulls together the
role of the Secretary of State and puts it in one place.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 202.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 202(a) is also a consolidation. This bill, in
title II, repeals provisions that relate to the exercise of Foreign
Service personnel authorities by the Agency for International De-
velopment and by the International Communication Agency. It puts
those agencies directly into the Foreign Service Act. This somewhat
broadens the authority available to those agencies.
Mr. FASCELL. That is in subparagraph (a) ?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, yes. And (b) simply then is a technical amend-
ment to carry out subsection (a). Rather than refer to each of these
agencies throughout the bill where it says the Department or Secre-
tary of State, it simply says that the terms "Department" and "Secre-
tary" will be read as if they also referred to IDCA and USICA. I
would note that there is a cross-reference to chapter 12 of the bill
which emphasizes the goal of maximum compatability in the Foreign
Service personnel system.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, (c) is self-explanatory and (d) is self-explan-
atory.
How about section 203?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 203 is taken directly from existing law, there
is no substantive change.
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Mr. FASCELL. Section 204.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 204 restores the Director General as a statutory
officer with a generally stated function. The Director General was pro-
vided for in the 1946 act. However, in 1949 legislation was enacted
which took the functions of the Director General in the law and trans-
ferred them to the Secretary, who then redelegated them. We provide
in this bill that the Director General will assist the Secretary of State.
The Office of Director General is also elevated to a Presidential ap-
poinment with the advice and consent of the Senate. The bill con-
templates that the Director General will be a principal assistant to
the Secretary in the management of the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. So you give them a statutory base ?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. You raise his level within the Department?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. And that is all that 204 does?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. How about 205?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 205 similarly establishes the Inspector General
as a Presidential appointee by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate. There is an anomaly in the 1946 act in that it provides for
Foreign Service inspectors but not a Foreign Service Inspector Gen-
eral to head this group of inspectors. The functions of the Inspector
General, which are spelled out in this section, are drawn from existing
law.
Subsection (b) which speaks about the interagency role of the In-
spector General, generally reflects current practice and places an em-
phasis on the programs that are under the supervision of the chief of
mission in a foreign country. This subsection contemplates an inter-
agency review role for the Inspector General in order to assess the con-
sistency of the operations of our overseas missions with U.S. foreign
policy and with the responsibilities of the Secretary of State and the
chief of mission.
Mrs. ScHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, why does he report to the Secretary
of State? Why does he not have the independence to report to the
Congress? As I read this, he is not as independent as Inspectors
General in other agencies are.
Mr. MICHEL. I am not sure I follow the question.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The Inspectors General in domestic agencies can
report directly to the Congress. As I read this, the IG of Foreign
Service is under the Secretary of State; is that correct?
Mr. MICHEL. This is intended to provide an officer who, like the
Director General, is an assistant to the Secretary of State in the man-
agement of the Foreign Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER,. What if we would like for him to be more inde-
pendent? We would have to change the legislation?
Mr. MICHEL. You would have to change the legislation and then you
would have a question of the relationship between the Inspector Gen-
eral and the Secretary. A judgment would have to be made as to
whether the office was more or less effective as a result.
Mr. FASCELL. Who presently performs the duties of the Inspector
General who would be provided for in the act?
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Mr. MICHEL. There is an Inspector General; the office is created
administratively. The incumbent, I think, is always a senior career
officer.
Mr. READ. Yes; Bob Brewster, the incumbent, is a career officer, as
were his predecessors, Ted Elliott and Bob Sayre.
Mr.FASCELL. So you have Bob Brewster and that is an adminis-
trative appointment?
Mr. MICHEL. He is appointed by the Secretary of State.
Mr. FASCELL. This contemplates the same general relationship?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. And you make him a Presidential appointee subject to
confirmation by the Senate?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you are not going to go the way you did last
year, looking for waste and abuses and so forth ?
Mr. MICHEL. We think this is a different kind of a mission. He is
looking at the management of the Foreign Service in a policy sense as
well as in the traditional auditing kind of a sense.and is a manage-
ment assistant to the Secretary of State.
Mr. FASCELL. Are there inspectors general now in ICA and AID?
Mr. MICHEL. There is an Auditor General of AID and there is an
ICA equivalent of the inspector general. I am not sure of the title.
Mr. FASCELL. The Auditor General in AID is statutorily based?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. How about the inspector general in USICA?
Mr. MICHEL. I am not sure of the status of that officer in ICA.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Let somebody find out and let's get that in
the record.
Mr. MICHEL. This officer is not intended to duplicate or substitute
for those agency auditing officials.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, who performs internal auditing functions now
for State?
Mr. MICHEL. Within State there is an audit branch that is within
the office of the Inspector General, but that office does not inspect the
books of other agencies.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the statutory relationship of this Inspector
General with the other agencies?
Mr. MICHEL. He or she, in cooperation with the other agencies, would
review the conduct of the programs of the overseas mission from the
standpoint of policy consistency and the relationship of the running
of those programs to the responsibilities of the chief of mission and
the Secretary of State. It is not the same as auditing and there is a co-
operative relationship that exists, and we hope will continue to exist,
with the other agencies.
Mr. FASCELL. But this statutory position for State would have no
authority over USICA or AID; is that correct?
Mr. MICHEL. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. OK. Let's go to the next section. What does (c) mean?
Mr. MICHEL. That is drawn from the existing .provisions of the
Foreign Service Act of 1946. There is no substantive change.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 206.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 206 reestablishes by statute a board of the
Foreign Service; a board with that designation was provided for in
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the 1946 act. Its functions were transferred to the President by reor-
ganization plan in 1965 and then redelegated back to the Secretary
of State by Executive order. The bill would provide that there would
be such a board established by the President. It blends the notions
of a legislative and a Presidential basis for the board and the legisla-
tion describes the role of the board as advisory to the Secretary of
State.
Mr. FASCELL. Now I notice that this board is essentially the same as
provided in the 1946 act.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. This board is composed of members of other agencies
and yet it is advisory to the Secretary only. I don't follow that.
Mr. MICHEL. Well, it is advisory to the Secretary of State, though
it has some across-the-board responsibilities which are discussed back
in chapter 12 of the bill and it facilitates the objective of maximum
compatibility among the agencies that use the Foreign Service system.
We want to have one Foreign Service opexated by several agencies
who have the need for these personnel authorities. We do not want
to have three or four Foreign Services. The board is a helpful tool in
being sure that we have one Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. All Tight. By the way, I expect my colleagues to inter-
rupt at any point here.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Do you have anything comparable at this point?
Mr. READ. Yes, it exists at the present time by Executive order,
Mr. Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Is the makeup quite similar to this?
Mr. READ. Yes.
Mr. PRITCHARD. How often does it meet?
Mr. READ. About every month, I would guess, on the average.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Does it file cases?
Mr. READ. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Does it disclose the advice it is handing out?
Mr. READ. Is there a record of their deliberations on reaching posi-
tions of advice?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are they open?
Mr. READ. Yes and no.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. They are not?
Mr. READ. No, when the board is advising the Secretary in most
cases.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I think that is very good. It depends on the thrust
of what they are doing. It is not a matter of deciding cases?
Mr. MICHEL. There is an adjudicatory role of the board in the labor
management area under the present Executive order which would not
be continued by this bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Because it is moved over into some other part?
Mr. MICHEL. It is moved into the Foreign Service labor relations
board. That new body will conduct proceedings on the record, such as
adjudicatory boards do.
Mr. PRITCHARD. It is different from the role of this board as you
envision.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
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52
Mr. FASCELL. This board would be purely advisory?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. And the adjudicatory function is removed?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. Adjudications would be on the record. However,
just as when the members of the grievance board, having heard a case,
deliberate over the outcome, I don't think they will do so in public.
This is like an appellate court, whose members would not sit around
in public and discuss the merits of a case before them.
Mr. FASCELL. But there is an appeals procedure?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. We will review that in more detail when we
get to that part of the bill.
Let's go to section 301.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 301 (a) restates the general rule that is now
set out in several places in the 1946 act. The 1946 act says Foreign
Service officers shall be citizens of the United States, Foreign Service
Reserve officers shall be citizens, and.so forth. This generalizes the
citizenship requirement and simply notes that consular agents need
not be citizens of the United States and foreign national employees, by
definition, are not citizens of the United States.
Mr. FASCELL. How about (b) ?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 301(b) is also consolidation of provisions of
existing law. This is one of the places where merit principles are
specifically noted. "Merit principles" is a term of art in this bill. It is
defined by citation to the merit system principles in the Civil Service
Reform Act. Those principles are made explicitly applicable here as
they are in other places throughout the bill.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What kind of physical examinations does the
Secretary provide?
Mr. MICHEL. I can't speak to the details of the examinations that
are provided for entry into the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, you are going to give us the specifics as requested
by Mr. Gray on both the oral and the written examinations so you
might as well submit to us a copy of the medical requirements, too.
Mrs. ScHROEDER. And other.
Mr. BUCHANAN. And other.
Mr. FASCELL. You might as well tell us what other is. Is that mental?
Mr. READ. I am not sure.
Mr. MICHEL. I think that is taken from the existing provision of
law.
Mr. READ. We do have a program for the handicapped.
Mr. FASCELL. How about subparagraph (c) ?
Mr. MICHEL. That is drawn from a law enacted in 1970 which es-
tablished the Foreign Service Information Officer Corps and (d)
Mr. PRITCHARD. Mr. Chairman.
Isn't that quite a bar to women?
Mr. MICHEL. There are fewer women who are veterans. This is not
a specific provision that says you will give preference to someone who
is a veteran over a woman.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I didn't say that. The end result is that this is one
of the reasons why it is more difficult for women and I would ask
the gentlelady from Colorado, though I am sure, isn't this one of the
major parts for women getting into the veterans preference?
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Many of us had hoped that they would give vet-
erans preference for those who fought the war on poverty. For awhile,
there was a 3-percent limitation on the number of women that could be
in the Service for a long period of time.
Mr. PRITCHARD. A vast majority are men.
Mr. MICHEL. Foreign Service officers are not covered by the entire
veterans preference laws and this subsection says, nevertheless, that
service as a member of the Armed Forces will be taken into
consideration.
Mr. PRITCHARD. It is so many points on a score or anything?
Mr. MICHEL. No.
Mr. PRITCHARD. It is a subjective score. When you are all done you
are supposed to take it into consideration.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is there any veterans retention preference or ap-
peal, anything like that?'
Mr. MICHEL. A member of the Foreign Service who is a veteran
may have access to the Merit Systems Protection Board in some cir-
cumstances of dismissal. We have provided in the bill for an election of
remedies because of an overlap with the Grievance Board's jurisdiction.
The individual will make an election of remedies and can go to the
Merit 'Systems Protection Board or to the Foreign Service Grievance
Board, but not both.
Mr. FASCELL. Other than the option provided on the election of
remedies which is someplace else in the bill, section (c) simply re-
states present administrative practices?
Mr. MICHEL. Present law. Public Law 90-494, section 14.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman, you have on page 2, section 101 (a)
(3) that the Foreign Service should be representative of the Ameri-
can people, aware of the principles and history of the United States
and informed of current concerns and trends in American life, knowl-
edgeable of other nations' affairs, cultures and languages, available
to serve in assignments throughout the world, and operated on the
basis of merit principles.
Mr. MICHEL. I certainly would hesitate to say there should be no
veterans language.
Mr. PRITCHARD. It may be. I think you are handling it all right. I
have a very strong bias against specific points in a situation like this
at this point and I think that-
Mr. BUCHANAN. The point may be but I want to reiterate this term
about affirmative action and making sure that the law itself is ade-
quately specific.
Mr. FASCELL. We can get into that later, if that is satisfactory.
All right. How about section 302?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 302 (a) identifies those members of the Serv-
ice who may be appointed only by the President by and with the ad-
vice and consent of the Senate. A difference from present law is that
the Ambassador at Large is identified separately. At present, the
Ambassador at Large is an appointment under the President's con-
stitutional powers to appoint ambassadors and the salary is the salary
of a chief of mission. We have had some distinguished Ambassadors
at Large serving through most of the recent past and this bill would
expressly acknowledge that there is such a category.
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Mr. FASCELL. In other words, that gives a statutory base to what
we have been doing?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Why not do away with a lot of paperwork?
Mr. MICHEL. We do.
The Foreign Service officer is initially appointed by the President
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, given a commis-
sion as a Foreign Service officer, diplomatic officer and a consular of-
ficer. I think this is an important feature that singles out the Foreign
Service Officer Corps.
The promotions of the Foreign Service officers traditionally, and
under the legislation that has existed in the past, have been by appoint-
ment to a new class. Every promotion requires a new appointment.
Now the draft bill would allow the Secretary of State to implement
the selection board recommendations on promotion through the middle
and upper ranks of the Foreign Service salary schedule so that once
initially appointed an officer could then be promoted without having
to be reconfirmed, without all that paperwork and the delay that
attends that process.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you are still going to keep it there for the
initial appointment?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes and also for the Senior Foreign Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have some questions about how realistic that is,
too.
Mr. MICHEL. Well, it is a distinguishing feature of the Foreign
Service Officer Corps which I think is of considerable importance to A.
lot of Foreign Service officers.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It may be, but that may be what makes it more as a
fraterr ity. .
Mr. MICHEL. It is something like the commissioned corps in the
military who attach importance to their Presidential appointments.
The other new reference in this subsection is to the career Senior
Foreign Service which is something that was not a single group under
prior law but rather we had senior members of the Foreign Service,
some of whom were officers and some of whom were reserve officers.
Now we propose a single Senior Foreign Service, all of whom would be
Presidential appointees if they are in career appointments.
Mr. FASCELL. So that clause in subparagraph (a) (1) is a substantive
change for a career member of the Foreign Service'!
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
I might skip here, if I may, to the Secretarial appointments. This.
bill contemplates two appointing authorities, the President for those
mentioned in this subsection and all others would be appointed by the
Secretary of State, including any limited appointments in the Senior
Foreign Service and appointment of candidates to be Foreign Service
officers.
Mr. FASCELL. What about subsection (b) ? That is new statutory
language to comply with the thrust of this bill, is it?
Mr. MICHEL. The personal rank provisions in paragraph 2 are cur-
rent law. Subsection (b) of this section is taken from section 571 of the
Foreign Service Act of 1946. It is different only with respect to the
authority provided for a career member of the Senior Foreign Service
to retain salary and eligibility for performance pay even if appointed
to a Presidential office.
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Mr. FASCELL. In other words, that language starting on line 18 down
through line 25 is new language.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. If appointed heretofore as an ambassador, he
would receive a statutory salary of an ambassador although he retains
his career status as a Foreign Service officer. We now say you retain
your career status and you may elect to retain your salary as a member
of the Senior Foreign Service and continue to compete for perform-
ance pay. This will avoid some of the most able officers risking a reduc-
tion in salary. It is parallel to the provision that applies to the Senior
Executive Service in the Civil Service Reform Act.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 303.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 303, as I mentioned earlier, simply says every-
one who is not appointed by the President is appointed by the
Secretary.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Is that current law?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, it is a consolidation.
Mr. FASCELL._ Section 311.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 311 is drawn entirely, I believe, from existing
law. I can give you the citations. The side-by-side-
Mr. FASCELL. The side-by-side will show the citations?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. This comes entirely from provisions of existing
law.
Mr. FASCELL. That whole section does, section 311?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. All right; section 321.
Mr. MICHEL. Well, section 321 affirms with respect to the new cate-
gory of Senior Foreign Service that the members, like other members
of the Foreign Service, are assigned to a salary class, not to a position.
It is a rank-in-person service like the rest of the Foreign Service.
It also establishes a limitation intended to protect the career char-
acter of the Service, providing not more than 5 percent may be non-
career. This reflects the current composition of the senior ranks of the
Foreign Service and would preserve that predominantly career
character.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Why don't you have the 10-percent figure that we
have in the senior executive service?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, the 10-percent limit as we understand it was
arrived at on the basis of experience within the civil service. Experi-
ence within the Foreign Service indicates that a 5-percent limit reflects
the realities and that a 10-percent limit would be an invitation to alter
those realities.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It would also be a limitation for affirmative action?
Mr. MICHEL. No; I don't know that that is true.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It could. Noncareer slots could be used to hire
minorities and women.
Mr. MICHEL. We are talking about the generals of the Foreign Serv-
ice, if you will.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And the civil service.
Mr. MICHEL. And this, of course, does not include the noncareer
Ambassadors who can certainly be. appointed by the President from
anywhere.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is right; but these are still the managers,
really. These are your super executive management team. You know
we opted for a 10-percent figure which, I think, gives you a little more
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flexibility. That is certainly not political control by any means but I
think it allows for a little more flexibility and change sometime.
Mr. READ. If I could just add a point. The 5 percent is defined in the
section-by-section analysis that we have submitted as not including
career Senior Foreign Service persons who may be needed abroad for
limited appointments.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I don't see it being anything
Mr. FASCELL. Except for size, maybe.
Mr. MICHEL. We generally do not bring people in as generals and
expect them to operate in this milieu which is predominantly a career
service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. As is civil service.
Mr. MIcHEL. The bill would provide for opportunities for entry
into the Service at any level; the statutory limitation is only on the
most senior levels. There is nothing that prevents somebody coming
in at midlevel and being promoted.
Mr. FASCELL. I take issue with that but it is all right.
I think what we better do at this point is stop; since we are going
to have a vote here shortly on an important bill. I want to thank you
gentlemen for being with us today and carrying us this far along in
the bill.
This process is simply to get us better acquainted with the matter.
We are far from making any judgments on anything at this point
and we will just pick it up from here as fast and as soon as we can.
Mr. READ. We will take no holidays and be at your disposal.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much.
The subcommittees will stand adjourned subject to the call of the
Chair.
[Whereupon, at 12:53 p.m., the subcommittees adjourned.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ox FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Wa8ltington, D.C.
The joint subcommittees met at 9:35 a.m. in room 2172, Rayburn
House Office Building, Hon. Patricia Schroeder (chairwoman of the
Subcommittee on Civil Service) presiding.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Chairman Fascell, committee members, witnesses,
we welcome you all to the second day of numerous hearings on the
Foreign Service Act of 1979.
Members of the committee will notice that the bill in their note-
books today varies somewhat from the bill which was before us last
week. Sadly, I must report that the gnomes at OMB have been busy
making little changes. It is kind of like coming home to find there
have been mice in your cupboard. It takes weeks before you figure
out all the boxes that they have gotten into.
Today's witnesses are John Reinhardt of the International Com-
munication Agency and Bob Nooter of the Agency for International
Development. The theme of today's hearing might be called Conver-
sion.
My subcommittee had some dealings with AID a few months ago
about the conversion of policy and program positions in Washing-
ton from civil service to Foreign Service. Today, ICA is telling
us about the problems of mandatory conversion of domestic-only
Foreign Service employees to Civil Service. It is beginning to sound
like a convention of missionaries trading stories about how and why
and whether people can and will be converted. But, with that, let us
begin. My cochair, Dante Fascell may have some comments.
Mr. FASCELL. No comments.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. He has no comments. It is up to you, you are on.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN E. REINHARDT, DIRECTOR, INTERNA-
TIONAL COMMUNICATION AGENCY
Mr. REINHARDT. Madam Chairperson, members of the subcom-
mittees, I am very pleased to appear before you today to discuss an is-
sue of great importance and interest to those of us in the Interna-
(57)
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tional Communication Agency, that is the proposed Foreign Service
Act of 1979.
While I have had the pleasure of meeting with the International
Operations Subcommittee on many previous occasions, I have not met
previously with the Civil Service Subcommittee. Therefore, with your
permission, before I begin my discussion of the Personnel Act itself,
I would like to take a few minutes to describe the International Com-
munication Agency.
Our mandate and objectives as an agency decidedly influenced our
view of the personnel system. USICA came into being on April 1, 1978,
as a result of Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1977. It is comprised of
the former U.S. Information Agency, and the former Bureau of
Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State.
We are an independent foreign affairs agency, charged by the Presi-
dent with : Encouraging the broadest possible exchange of people and
ideas between our country and other nations; increasing understand-
ing of our society and policies among other peoples; expanding the
knowledge of Americans about societies abroad; and advising our
Government in the formulation of foreign policy.
Our budget for the current fiscal year is $418 million. Our staff
includes 8,300 employees, of which 4,022 are American personnel and
4,125 are non-Americans hired locally overseas. Our American per-
sonnel include 1,570 GS and 155 GG employees ; 870 Foreign Service
information officers: and 1,105 Foreign Service reserve officers, 900 of
whom are the so-called domestic specialists. We also have 230 wage
grade and 245 Foreign Service staff employees. By the end of 1979,
we will be operating 205 posts in 125 countries.
To fulfill our mission we : Facilitate the international exchange of
nearly 5,000 scholars and professionals every year; annually arrange
for approximately 400 visiting American experts to talk to foreign
audiences on topics of mutual concern ; broadcast 820 hours per week
in 38 languages on the Voice of America; maintain and support read-
ing rooms, libraries and centers in over 100 countries; produce or
acquire videotape programs and films for use in our posts overseas;
produce approximately 10 large exhibits and 75 small exhibits per
year; and through our offices overseas, maintain regular contact with
a broad segment of opinion leaders, including the media and the aca-
demic and cultural communities in each country.
The Agency has six Presidential appointees : the Director at Execu-
tive Level II; the Deputy Director at Executive Level III, and four
Associate Directors at Executive Level IV, one each for educational
and cultural affairs, broadcasting, vrograms, and management. Our
five geographic area offices, usually headed by career Foreign Service
information officers, parallel the 'structure of the geographic bureaus
in the Department of State.
With this general background, Madam Chairperson, I would now
like to talk about the Foreign Service Act itself. and the particular
impact which it can have on the Agency and its employees.
Proposals for changing personnel policies deserve the closest scru-
tiny and the most careful consideration because they go to the very
heart of the morale. efficiency. and effectiveness of any career service.
Experience has made us fully aware of this fact in the Foreign Serv-
ice, and it has weighed on our minds at every step of our deliberations
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59
about the proposed bill. We have consulted with representatives of our
union, local 1812 of the American Federation of Government Em-
ployees, who have had considerable influence on the development of
the Agency's position. We have consulted members of the Service, both
at home and abroad, who have studied the various proposals and have
shared their concerns.
We have worked closely with the Department of State in drafting
the proposed legislation and have been encouraged by the cooperation
we have received. We have met with Secretary Vance, Under Secre-
tary Read, Director General Barnes and other officials of the Depart-
ment. Our lawyers and personnel staffs have been in regular contact
with their counterparts at the Department of State as the bill was
drafted.
The proposed act reaffirms the need for a professional Foreign Serv-
ice with its own personnel system. Secretary Vance has already de-
scribed the purposes of the bill. I associate myself fully with those
purposes and urge the committee to report favorably on the bill as
rapidly as may be possible.
There are a few major provisions which I would like to address:
The bill creates a Senior Foreign Service comparable to the senior
executive service in the civil service. I support the proposed Senior
Foreign Service. I see it as a positive personnel management proposal,
well adapted to promote the best opportunities and incentives for our
ablest senior officers. I believe the Senior Foreign Service system will
contribute to enhanced productivity in the public service. At the pres-
ent time Foreign Service officers do not enjoy many of the incentives
which will be available to their counterparts in the senior executive
service. The Senior Foreign Service proposal would put the two
career services on a par and make available to Senior Foreign Service
officers the incentives and rewards which are now available only to
senior civil service employees. In return, it is reasonable to set the
highest, most stringent standards of performance, as this bill does.
The bill provides a single Foreign Service salary schedule for Amer-
ican personnel. The new schedule will supersede the two overlapping
schedules that now exist for officers and staff employees. This will en-
able us to achieve the long sought objective of having a uniform pay
scale for all Foreign Service personnel, including Foreign Service in-
formation officers, Foreign Service staff employees, and Foreign Serv-
ice Reserve officers who are available for worldwide assignment.
The bill will provide a useful statutory basis for labor-management
relations, which has been lacking heretofore.
Consistent with Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1977, which estab-
lished TTSICA. the. bill provides the Director with all authority nec-
essary to manage USICA's personnel systems. While seeking the max-
imum compatibility in personnel policies and practices among the for-
eign affairs agencies, it allows for differences necessary for the accom-
plishment of separate Agency missions.
Finally, under the proposed bill, the Foreign Service "domestic
specialist" personnel category is eliminated by the provision that all
such personnel shall be converted mandatorily to the civil service not
later than 3 years after the effective date of the act.
We concur with the need to consolidate the personnel systems which
have evolved over the years, clearly sorting them out into two sys-
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tens-foreign and domestic. Only in that way will all employees know
clearly where they stand in terms of work requirements, pay scales,
and assignment obligations.
USICA has taken a number of steps toward this end in recent
Years. We have stopped the practice of appointing officers to positions
in USICA under any Foreign Service personnel system unless they
are available for assignment overseas. Further, we have implemented
a regulation which severely limits the length of domestic tours for our
Foreign Service information officers.,
Nevertheless, we have over 900 Agency employees classified as For-
eign Service "domestic specialists," known as FAS employees. They
work as Voice of America technicians and broadcasters, magazine
editors, exhibit designers, and in many of the positions are essential to
the support of our missions overseas. Experience has shown that the
features of the civil service personnel system are more suitable for
this class of employees than are the procedures of the Foreign Service
system. For example, promotions for a domestic complement can be
made more equitably under the rank-in-job system than under the
rank-in-person system. For these reasons, we have moved in recent
years toward the use of civil service procedures for domestic personnel,
regardless of whether they are categorized as Foreign Service or civil
service.
In 1977 we entered into an agreement with Local 1812 of the Ameri-
can Federation of Government Employees, the exclusive bargaining
representative of our Foreign Service personnel. That agreement
provides that USICA's Foreign Service "domestic specialists" would
not be subject to mandatory conversion to civil service, though they
have the option, through June 30, 1981, of converting voluntarily.
Under the agreement, those who do not exercise this option would re-
main in the Foreign Service. A corollary provision states that no new
domestic specialists would be brought into USICA's Foreign Service.
The ultimate objective of a clear distinction between Foreign Serv-
ice and civil service within USICA would be achieved in time, through
attrition and the application of new hiring policies. However, while
the present arrangements go far toward meeting management needs
and safeguarding employee benefits, they fall short of the clear-cut
distinction between Foreign Service and civil service systems that is
made in the proposed new Foreign Service Act of 1979. Under the pro-
posed act, domestic employees will be converted to the civil service so
that all operational features of that system can be employed in day-to- .
day management. This will facilitate the administration of domestic
personnel and will treat in the same fashion all employees who serve
only in the United States.
At the same time we were and are convinced that employees who
were granted Foreign Service retirement benefits when they were ap-
pointed in the Foreign Service system should retain those benefits.
These benefits, which were conferred upon employees who earlier were
encouraged by management to join the Foreign Service, will be
preserved.
Because of USICA's agreement with AFGE, special provision is
made in the proposed act for the temporary exemption of USICA
"domestic specialist" employees from mandatory conversion until July
1, 1981, the period allowed for voluntary conversion under the con-
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tract. Thus, the proposed legislation endeavors to preserve the es-
sential thrust of the agreement with AFGE, while providing better
personnel management and following the policy and procedures pro-
posed for other foreign affairs agencies.
However, I must be candid in stating that in the discussions regard-
ing the preparation of this bill, and in view of the agreement with
AFGE, I have opposed the application of this provision to our em-
ployees. Many of the affected employees have expressed strong objec-
tion to mandatory conversion. I am sure you will hear the testimony
of their representatives.
In summary, I reiterate our full support for a revised, updated, and
consolidated Foreign Service personnel system. The revised act can
serve to clarify many aspects of our present patchwork personnel sys-
tem, to correct the inequities which have evolved over the years; to
consolidate the many branches of the Foreign Service into a single
career service; to obtain greater comparability of pay between the
Foreign Service and the civil service, and to convey to all members
of the Service our appreciation for the changing requirements and
challenges they face.
Madam Chairperson, I am accompanied by several colleagues of
our staff of USICA who have worked diligently on this bill and we,
together, would be happy to try to answer your questions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Reinhardt. We are
very pleased to have you again with us this morning.
Let me yield first to my colleagues for questions, and we will pro-
ceed on, then.. Congressman Fascell, do you have any questions?
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
I am just trying to catch up with a contract for which a special
exemption has-
as been made in the proposal. Did I understand you
correctly ?
Mr. REINHARDT. You did, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. And this contract runs out on July 1, 1981?
Mr. REINHARDT. Only as it applies to the voluntary conversion por-
tions of the agreement. That is, the approximately 900 employees in
USICA have until June 30, 1981, to make a decison as to whether they
want to convert to the civil service or remain in the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. You mean that is in the contract?
Mr. REINHARDT. That is in our agreement with the union.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, you are going to do that regardless
of the law?
Mr. REINHARDT. Unless the law is changed. The agreement was made
under the law that prevailed at the time.
Mr. FASCELL. I am talking about this proposed law.
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, that agreement really has nothing to
do with the proposed law.
Mr. REINHARDT. It does not, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Go ahead.
Mr. REINHARDT. The proposed law provides for mandatory toner=
lion after that date for our employees, and mandatory conversion
shortly after the passage of the act for other employees, that is, those
in the Department of State.
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Mr. FASCELL. So, they are going to have under the present con-
tract-I just want to see where the employees are coming from, I just
want to understand it. Of course, they are going to tell me when they
get here, so it will not make any difference; but I would like to know
anyway.
Under the contract that has been negotiated, which expires on
June 30, 1981, people will have a choice who are FAS-is that the
right designation?
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. 900 of them, approximately?
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Out of how many people?
Mr. REINHARDT. Out of approximately 4,000 American employees.
Mr. FASCELL. So, they can make up their minds as to what is best
for them, under that contract.
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct.
Mr. FABCELL. And that choice is basically to do what, go to civil
service, or not? Or go to civil service and get out?
Mr. REINHARDT. Bear in mind, sir, that the so-called FAS category
was a kind of never-never land; they were not in the Foreign Service
and they were not out of the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. It was a special designation.
Mr. REINHARDT. It was a special designation for USICA and the
Department of State; it applied to both.
Mr. FABCELL. Now, what is their choice under that contract? You
say they have a voluntary choice. What is it?
Mr. REINHARDT. The USICA officers, in accordance with our agree-
ment with AFGE, now have the choice voluntarily to remain in the
Foreign Service or to convert to the civil service, provided that they
do it no later than June 30, 1981. This agreement was made in 1977,
and it remains in effect as of now.. The proposed legislation
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me, I have to pursue that for just a minute,
if you do not mind.
Mr. REINHARDT. Sure.
Mr. FABCELL. The deadline arrives and I am an employee, and I
have made no choice. Where am I?
Mr. REINHARDT. If they have not made a choice to convert to the
civil service, they remain in the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. So, by not doing anything, I have made a choice.
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. I do not really have to do anything, then.
Mr. REINHARDT. Unless you want to go the civil service, you do not
have to do anything.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Now, let us assume that nobody does any-
thing, all 900 convert, or stay where they are, or whatever it is. Then
the bill becomes effective. Are they in the Foreign Service, or where
are they?
Mr. REINHARDT. They presumably would be in the Foreign Service.
They would have a hard choice.
Mr. FASCELL. Why?
Mr. REINHARDT. They would have a hard choice if they were not
available for worldwide duty. Anyone who is in the Foreign Service
must be available for assignment worldwide.
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Mr. FASCELL. All right.
Mr. REINHARDT. There are people who do not wish to be available.
Mr. FASCELL: So, that would be an important factor in their volun-
tary choice prior to June 30 because the contract expires then. See,
I am looking to the next negotiation, and I want to know what is going
to be on the line if this bill becomes law on July 1. I am willing to be
perfectly reasonable, but I want to understand what we are playing
with in terms of decisions; you see?
Mr. REINHARDT. If this bill becomes law it provides that after
July 30, 1981, the mandatory feature will be in effect for all em-
ployees-USICA employees, AID employees, and the Department
of State.
Mr. FASCELL. So, there is nothing to negotiate about.
Mr. REINHARDT. There would be nothing to negotiate at that point.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Chapter 3, section 333 authorizes an employment of Foreign Service
spouses. Does your Agency now, or are you contemplating functional
training for spouses in preparation for jobs overseas?
Mr. REINHARDT. Yes; we have entered into an agreement with what
is called the Family Liaison Office of the Department of State to
provide the maximum training that we can for accompanying spouses,
and to make good-faith efforts to secure positions for accompanying
spouses.
It is now in effect. We have been able to secure some positions. We
have not been able to solve this problem completely.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, I must compliment you, you are ahead of the
State Department. We might put you in charge of the Department of
State so we get a little more action.
Mr. REINHARDT. Thank you for your compliment, Mr. Buchanan.
I am not sure we are ahead of the State Department, we are working
closely with them on this.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Your modesty and your diplomacy are also ad-
mirable, I must say, Mr. Ambassador.
Let me ask you if there are any concerns which you expressed to
either the Department of State or OMB which are not addressed.
Mr. REINHARDT. No major concerns whatsoever, sir. The Depart-
ment of State, the Secretary of State himself, knows our position on
mandatory conversion, respects our position, and at the same time
thought that he must support the legislation as presented to you.
Mr. BUCHANAN. The bill as written reflects the intention to provide
for a unified system for all foreign affairs agencies, but the promul-
gation of regulations would appear to pave the way for some major
differences. For example, it would appear that State could establish
the 5-year time-in-class limit on an FSO-3, for example, while ICA
could establish a 3-year limit and AID might establish an 8-year limit.
I wonder if that prospect, which I believe could happen under the
terms of the legislation, would not make possible a sort of bidding-up
process between the various agencies involved, State, AID, 'ICA. You
want to comment on that ?
Mr. REINHARDT. I think only minimally, sir. Each of the agencies
affected by the proposed legislation would have to subscribe to the
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principles of the Senior Foreign Service, and we would. Each of the
agencies, on the other hand, would operate its own separate personnel
system in accordance with those principles. Thus, whether the State
Department had a 5-year and we had a 3-year, and AID had a 4-year
limit in effect for time in class, it seems to me would not make a great
deal of difference. These limitations would be made in light of the
needs of the three particular services. Each would be bound by the
principle however; neither would be permitted to abrogate the Senior
Foreign Service, each would have to have one.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Ireland.
Mr. IRELAND. Thank you, Madam' Chairman.
If you could enlighten me on one subject about the length of service
in the United States at the present time, the tour, and whether this
would be changed in this legislation, in your opinion.
Mr. REINHARDT. We do it by regulation, and so does the Depart-
ment of State. The law provides that a Foreign Service officer who
has served 8 years in the Department in a domestic assignment must
accept an overseas assignment unless he secures the written permission
of the Secretary of State to serve a ninth year. Within that law we in
USICA have also formed a regulation that the length of the domestic
assignment is 4 years. The officer who has served domestically for 3
years is promptly notified at the end of the 3 years that he should
look forward to a foreign assignment no later than the end of the
fourth year. A few exceptions are made to this regulation for what
we think are good reasons, but that is the regulation. During the last
2 years we have successfully implemented it.
Mr. IRELAND. If a great number of these employees remained in
the Foreign Service instead of opting out in a sense, would you antic-
ipate any change in that regulation?
Mr. REINHARDT. I assume that you are referring to the so-called
FAS employees.
Mr. IRELAND. Right.
Mr. REINHARDT. You have to bear in mind that the FAS. employees
are domestic specialists. Despite the name these are people who serve
in Washington. Now, a few of them have served a temporary tour of
duty overseas, but by and large these are the people who are working
in the Voice of America; or these are the people who are working
to prepare magazines or exhibits in the United States.
For reasons that I never clearly understood, they were put into this
category called FAS. It was a good-faith effort on the part of man-
agement and the employees. They had certain benefits from going into
this category, the principal one being, in my judgment, the applica-
bility of Foreign Service retirement to these employees. So, they went
in for whatever reasons. This bill will not necessarily swell the Foreign
Service rolls because many of these people may convert to the civil
service. They could retain their Foreign Service annuity if they
convert to the civil service.
So, if I understand your question correctly, there will not neces-
sarily be 900 people going into the Foreign Service.
Mr. IRELAND. But let us take the ones that do convert, they would
be subject to the regulation you described.
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Mr. REINHARDT. No question.
Mr. IRELAND. Now, if a sizable number of those converted and sud-
denly you are faced with the regulation of putting them overseas,
do you anticipate any attempt to change that regulation?
Mr. REINHARDT. I would not, sir. I think that we would adjust by
recruitment; we would adjust by attrition; we would adjust by the
promotion system.
Mr. IRELAND. In theory, perhaps they got the best of both worlds.
They have the better retirement, for instance, that you just men-
tioned, but they do not have either the hazard or the inconvenience
of traveling overseas; and if they stay in, in theory they give up the
hazard or inconvenience of traveling overseas unless the regulations
change or they are exempted in some fashion: So, all of a sudden
they would have to go overseas.
Mr. REINHARDT. You mean our regulation governing the tour of
duty ?
Mr. IRELAND. Right.
Mr. REINHARDT. If they opt for the Foreign Service, that regulation
would apply to them; but they would know this to begin with.'
Mr. IRELAND. I understand.
Mr. REINHARDT. They would have to make themselves..: available,
for worldwide assignment.
Mr. IRELAND. Right.
Mr. REINHARDT. If -they did not opt for, that, 'they..would simply
be in the civil service. They would have the benefit of the Foreign
Service annuity system, that is correct; but we think that is only fair
in light of the manner in which the FAS system was established.
Mr. IRELAND. I understand. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Could I pursue this for just a minute? The thought
occurs to me, you see, that we would not want to be faced with a
negotiation after mandatory conversion that provides an exemption
in the contract, exemption of the tour of duty requirement, for those
people foi' their. lifetime' in ? the service, or for 5 years, or for the
length of the contract. Do you follow me?
Mr. RREINHARDT. I follow you.
MR. FASCELL. We do not think that would be fair.
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct, neither do I.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, frankly, I do not understand-I will a little later,
I am still struggling with this and of course it is difficult because the
individuals are not here and we have not heard from them yet, but they
will be able to speak for themselves. But with voluntary time to convert
until June 30, at which point it becomes mandatory, and considering
that employees have 2 or 3 years to make a decision to convert to the
Foreign Service or the civil service, and they have the ability to take
the best of the retirement systems. I cannot. understand what the
hangup is. 'Could you enlighten me just a little bit so I will be ready
when they testify ?
Mr. REINHARDT. I am not sure I want to represent the union's views.
Mr. FASCELL. I am sure you understand what it is, and I do not know,
frankly, just exactly what it is.
Mr. REINHARDT. Well, let me try again, sir.
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Mr. FASCELL. All right.
Mr. REINHARDT. At the present time these so-called FAS employees,
Foreign Service "domestic specialists" enjoy the following rights in
common to all Foreign Service officers : They have rank-in-person; they
participate in the Foreign Service retirement system; they have access
to the Foreign Service grievance system, and on a kind of "grand-
fathered" basis all officers who were in the Foreign Service on Septem-
ber 2421975, have tax-free annuities if retired for medically determined
inability to perform their official duties.
Mr. FABCELL. Now, what you are telling me now is, they want all of
the Foreign Service benefits without having to serve overseas.
Mr. REINHARDT. Well, the fact is, sir, they have them.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that, and they do not want to give them
up. The election on conversion is retirement, is that correct? And then
also the rank-in-person as againstthe rank-in-job.
Mr. REINHARDT. What they would lose would be the rank-in-person.
They would lose access to the grievance system, and they would lose the
tax-free annuity that they now have.,
Mr. FASCELL. Yes; that is substantial. Now, that makes a. little more
sense. Let us examine this because unless there is some other way out-
and I do not know right off the top,of my head what that is-you are
talking about 900 people at the rate of attrition, then, as I see it. How
long a period are we talking about?
Mr. REINHARDT. We differ on this.
Mr. FASCELL. Who is "we"?
Mr. REINHARDT. Those of us sitting at this table.
Mr. FASCELL. OK. (Laughter.]
Mr. REINHARDT. Ms. Garcia thinks that this could last as long as
25 years. I think that she stretched it a little bit, but it would be a
considerable period, 15, 20, 25 years. It would depend on the ages
of the people.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
Mr. REINHARDT. Whether they retired, quit, what happened to them:
But it would be a considerable period of time. In fairness to my
State Department colleagues, this is what they do not like about the
provision, and I can understand their position. Nevertheless, we have
a binding agreement with the union and that makes it difficult.
Mr. FASCELL. Right, I understand that. Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Sir, have you reviewed the results of the Hay Asso-
ciates study and if so, do you have any opinion of it?
Mr. REINHARDT. I have not read the study. I know in general what
it provides. I certainly do not have an opinion now. We favor the
performance of the study. We do not know exactly how its provisions
would apply to our agency, therefore I would like to submit an
opinion later.
Mr. LEACH. I would appreciate that very much because that will
be important. In light of a statement the President made recently,
would you hazard an opinion on whether you have too many or too
few employees overseas?
Mr. REINHARDT. We think it is about right, give or take a few.
We have looked at this question very, very carefully on our own
before the President made his recent statement and with minor excep-
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tions we do not think that we are an "offending" agency in this
respect.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you. I would like to share that opinion. I have
certain biases about overseas posts, and one of those biases is that
the Foreign Service information officers and your people have two
things in common with the Foreign Service; one is that, in general,
they get much more deeply into foreign cultures than Foreign Serv-
ice officers do; second, they are a bit more of a creative mold, and
maybe third, it always struck me that the power and strength of the
United States today is very much in the cultural arena, and of all
the things that we as Americans have to sell positively it is your job
to do.
I would hope that you would be able to sustain any attempt to cut
back on your overseas assignments.
Mr. REINHARDT. You are obviously a very keen observer.
Mr. LEACH. Let me ask you, do you feel there is any unique problem
in your a ency that is not addressed in this legislation that perhaps
should be?
Mr. REINHARDT. Well, I think there are some problems in the For-
eign Service-we mentioned ?a couple of them-affecting our agency
and all other Foreign Service agencies, that legislation can address.
The spouse problem that we have discussed, for example, is quite a
problem and it has grown in the last 10 years.
The Foreign Service is no longer as attractive as it was-the fall
of the dollar, for example; the unavailability of many of the ameni-
ties that were available over the last 20 or 25 years ago, that simply
are not there any longer. You cannot address this by legislation.
It is obviously a more hazardous career than it was 20 or 25 years
ago, terrorism and all the rest. And then, the general attractiveness
of our oven society has done something to the Foreign Service men-
tality. When I first came into the Foreign Service, the last thing that
we generally wanted was for the personnel system to assign us to a
Washington job; we wanted to stay overseas. In my own case, I was
overseas about 1.1, years, I avoided a Washington assignment for 11
years. Some of my colleagues were even more successful.
This has changed. An officer and his family is now assigned to
Washington and for some reason-many reasons, no doubt-they are
not beating on the door of the personnel office seeking a foreign as-
signment. I submit there is not much you can do from your position
about these and related problems. We are aware of them, and we work
with diligence trying to overcome them. We are not always success-
ful. But, legislation is not the answer.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, that is a very, very powerful assessment of
trends. Let me ask you on a slightly different subject. Do you support
mandatory retirement at 60 and, if so, why?
Mr. REINHARDT. I do, sir. The Foreign Service is different, there is
no question about it. That is the reason we have the Rogers Act of
1946 to begin with: he had recognized the difference between Foreign
Service employment and Civil Service employment.
It provides for rank-in-person. That is a major feature of it, and
I do not think that any time in the foreseeable future would we want
to eliminate that. Once that provision is legislated as it is now, and
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as it is proposed under this legislation, we have tremendous problems
at the top, with the people who finally rise to the top. In our own
agency, for example, in the last 2 years we have promoted no more
than half a dozen people to grade 1. This is very tough. on the officers
who are at grade 4, and 3, and 2-they do not rise. Thus, the retire-
ment provision enables them to rise more rapidly.
More importantly, it seems to me,, one cannot demonstrate. this with
any mathematical certainty, but the older we get in the Foreign Serv-
ice, the more we like to stay in Washington. Frankly, we have diffi-
culty in assigning the 61-, 62-year-old officer to an overseas post. It is
understandable from a human and personal point of view-he has a
house; he has children that just finished college; he has grandchildren,
and he is not eager to go 6,000 miles away and leave them. This is a
demonstrable factor in the assignment process today.
Thus, I think if we did not have this provision in the law, we would
have great difficulty administering the Foreign Service personnel
system.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, sir.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I have no questions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have some questions, too; I will submit most of
them for the record because you have been very patient, have been
sitting here for quite some time.,
I basically just wanted to get one thing clear for the record, there
was a March 26 letter that you wrote to Mr. Read in which you said,
"In short, I will not support any legislation which has a mandatory
conversion feature in it." This morning you are now saying that you do
support this legislation.
I am wondering what happened between March 26 and today. Was
it the Office of Management and Budget? Was it other features of
the bill that you did not look at, at the time. Why the change from
the newsletter that came out to this ?
Mr. REINHARDT. There is not as much inconsistency there, Madam
Chairperson, as you may think. This.~ oppsed legislation has evolved
from about the 1st of January until the, present time, and the prow.
posed legislation that we saw in early January, as I recall, is entirely
different from what is now before this House.
We modestly say that we were responsible , for many of the
changes. We had hours of discussions and negotiations wth our
colleagues in the Department of State. Thus, in very-good faith we
are able to support this bill, with the one exception that I have tried
to explain. It is still in there, and indeed, our colleagues in the De-
partment of State have made a special provision for our 900 em-
ployees. We do not think it goes quite far enough, as I have explained,
but there has been no pressure from OMB ; there has been no pressure
from Secretary Vance; he knows that I am testifying as, I am now,
and he knows the great difficulty that we have with this conversion
feature, for reasons that I have explained.
But you should look, I submit,!., at the proposal in January and
compare it, or really contrast it with the proposal now before you-
it is a different bill.'
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Mrs. SCIROEDER. Do I also understand that you do not worry about
the fact that in this bill it appears that the independence of ICA is
going to be diminished? It appears that the Secretary of State will
have a much greater
Mr. REINHARDT. I am not sure how you are using the word "ap-
pear." There is a specific provision-if my colleagues can find it-
early in the. bill, that does not diminish the independence of the Agen-
cy. My colleagues tell me that it is section 202 (d).. "Nothing in this
act"-the proposal says-"shall. be. construed as diminishing the au-
thority of the Director of the International. Communication Agency
or the Director of the International Development Cooperation
Agency."
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Then you interpret this as not strengthening the
Secretary of State in relation to your "agency.
Mr.: REINHARDT. I think that it strengthens-the hands of the heads of
all .agencies,.including!he Secretary of State.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But yyou do not feel that it diminishes the independ-
ence of your agency at all n relation to the Secretary of State.
Mr. REINHARDT. As we read the bill, it does not. We would not favor
the, bill if it did.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. In your March 26 .letter to Under Secretary Read
again you ssaid that, "The window for entry into Senior Foreign Service
is unnecessary," and today you endorsed the bill's proposed Senior
Foreign. Service which has such a window. Have you changed your
mind?
Mr. REINHARDT. No; the debate with our colleagues, with Mr. Read
and others, was over whether there should be a narrow or wide window.
We recognized that there should be a window. We argued that as it was
first conceived-3 years, I believe-that was entirely too narrow. So,
we recognize there certainly has to be some kind of window.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Yes; and it is just how wide it was. Do you think it
is now wide enough?
Mr. REINHARDT. Yes; it is wide enough for us to support it, I think.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And again, you think there was a basic change from
the bill that came out in January?
Mr. REINHARDT. Certainly from the basic bill that came out in Janu-
ary. That had it awfully narrow and gave the agencies little or no
discretion in widening it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you have "whistle-blowing" provisions in the
ICA?
Mr. REINHARDT. Yes, we do.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I heard you mention something about spouses. Do
you have a policy, also, of hiring spouses abroad?
Mr. REINHARDT. To the maximum extent possible. The -ma ximum
extent-possible to date, I must confess, is not enough. We have a limited
number of positions overseas-maybe Miss Garcia has the figure-we
hired a certain number.. That window is too narrow.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you use. your own foreign national slots, or are
you allowed to ask the State Department for foreign national slots for
spouses, and what pay scales do you use, do you use the foreign national
pay scales, or do you use the U.S. pay scale?
Mr. REINHARDT. We use certain _ foreign national slots, and it is the
foreign national pay scale that is used.
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70
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you only use your own foreign national slots;
is that correct?
Mr. REINHARDT. That is correct.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Have you thought of asking the State Department
for some of theirs for this problem.
Mr. REINHARDT. It is not the number of slots that is the problem, it is
the types of jobs that these jobs cover. These jobs go from chauffeur,
typist-type work to senior foreign national advisers, and there are
roughly 4,000 of them. So, it is not so much the number that bothers
us as the type of employment that we must have. A spouse may not
serve very well as a senior adviser to our staff, we obviously need a local
person to do that, someone who knows the environment in which we
work.
On the other hand, a spouse may or may not want a typing job, or
any of the ones in between that we have to offer. So, the limitation is
not the number but the type of work.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Well, since it is also limited by the type of work,
have you also looked to the State Department to find out if they have
more of the kind and quality of job that you need.
Mr. REINHARDT. The State Department foreign national slots may
very well provide some jobs of interest to our spouses-and vice versa.
Our posts in embassies around the world are perfectly free to engage
in this kind of interchange.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What is ICA's record in hiring and promoting
blacks, Hispanics, women, and other minorities?
Mr. REINHARDT. Progressive and encouraging as compared with 10
to 15, to 20 years ago. Approximately 11 percent of our officer corps
is minorities; these positions are held by minorities.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And by "minorities," you define that as Hispanics
and blacks, or do you include women in there, too?
Mr. REINHARDT. I do not, mainly blacks and Hispanics, Asians, na-
tive Americans, the usual definition of "minority"-but mainly blacks
and Hispanics.
Approximately 15 percent of our officer corps is composed of women.
At the entering level, approximately 19 percent of the officers now en-
tering the Agency. are minorities, approximately 38 percent are women.
We have made some progress. We certainly do not think that the "mil-
lenium" has arrived, 11 percent is a trifle short, we think. We shall
continue.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Again, I thank you very much for appearing, and I
do have some more questions but I think I will submit them for the
record in the interest of time. Does anyone else have anything he would
like to add or subtract?
Thank you very, very much for appearing this morning.
Mr. FASCELL. Before you leave, Mr. Ambassador, could I ask you
a question? What hannens to lawyers, how many lawyers do you have
and what happens to them?
Mr. REINHARDT. Here is one of them. How many lawyers do we
have?
Mr. FASCELL. One?
Mr. REINHARDT. We have nine lawyers, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Where are they in this new setup?
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Mr. REINHARDT. They are domestic employees, civil service
employees.
Mr. FASCELL. Under the bill?
Mr. REINHARDT. Maybe I had better let a lawyer answer your
question.
STATEMENT OF C. NORMAND POIRIER, DEPUTY GENERAL
COUNSEL, INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION AGENCY
Mr. PonuER. There are five in the Foreign Service as "domestic
specialists."
Mr. FASCELL. You mean right now?
Mr. PoIRIER. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. What happens to them in this proposed legislation?
Mr. POIRIER. They would be mandatorily converted under the pro-
posed legislation.
Mr. FASCELL. "They," which ones?
Mr. POIRIER. The five who are in the Foreign Service would be man-
datorily converted under the proposed legislation.
Mr. FASCELL. I see. Is this a special provision or general provision
in this bill? I just have not caught up with it yet.
Mr. POIRIER. Well, those who are in the Foreign Service are there
as "domestic specialists."
Mr. FASCELL. I see; so they would mandatorily be converted. Now,
are you concerned about the quality of the lawyer who is either Civil
Service or Foreign Service? I cannot tell the difference, myself.
Mr. POIRIER. No, I do not think that the system itself alters the
quality of lawyer that we have.
Mr. FASCELL. And do you think that if they mandatorily all become
Civil Service, that in some way is going to lower the quality, or the
attractiveness of the job for lawyers?
Mr. PoiRIER. No.
Mr. FASCELL. My experience in Washington is, you have to beat them
off with a stick. [Laughter.]
Mr. POIRIER. At the present time the market for lawyers in Washing-
ton, as elsewhere, is very competitive. [Laughter.]
For those looking for jobs. [Laughter.]
Mr. FASCELL. You mean there are more lawyers than slots?
Mr. POIRIER. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Again, thank you very much.
The next witness we have this morning is Robert H. Nooter who is
the Acting Administrator for the Agency for International
Development.
We welcome you, Mr. Nooter.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT H. NOOTER, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR,
AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. NooTER. Thank you, Mrs. Schroeder.
With your permission and in the interest of time, I have a prepared
statement which I suggest be submitted in full. for the record. I will
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72
only summarize some of the highlights and read a short portion at the
end.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That will be fine.
Mr. NooTER. A lot of this material, of course, you have already been
through. From the viewpoint of AID, the portions of the proposed
legislation that are of special interest are these : First, the creation of a
Senior Foreign Service to create a system comparable to the senior civil
service; second the elimination of the Foreign Service staff category
personnel and its separate pay scale, which creates an artificial dis-
tinction between that category of personnel and our other Foreign
Service people; and third, revision of the Foreign Service pay scale
to make it more compatible with the civil service scale and then permit
convertibility between the civil service and the Foreign Service.
We do not have the problem which ICA has on the 900 FAS-type
personnel nor that which State has with its FSRU and other special
categories of people. We have not used those special categories in the
past, and therefore those changes will not impact on our system.
I would now like to read the portion of my statement that has to do
with the Obey amendment, about which we testified before you earlier
this year. "The proposed new Foreign Service Act would not conflict
with the Obey amendment or the regulations that AID submitted to
the Congress on May 1 of this year in response to section 401."
This was the Obey provision. "Nor does this bill alter AID's com-
mitment to the ' policy underlying section 401. Accordingly, AID, in
filling Foreign Service-designated positions, will follow the regula-
tions promulgated under that section 401. This means we will move to-
ward a larger portion of our people in Washington being Foreign
Service-related.
In conclusion, AID supports the bill and believes it to be an excel-
lent set of authorities to enable us to employ our Foreign Service per-
sonnel in.ways which can best achieve the objectives of our administra-
tion of the Foreign Assistance Act.
With that, I will be glad to answer any uestions.
[Mr. Nooter's prepared statement follows
PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT H. NOOTER, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, AGENCY FOB
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Madam Chairwoman, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committees : I am
pleased to appear before these two subcommittees to testify in favor of the leg-
islation proposed by the President, the Foreign Service Act of 1979.
We at AID regard this proposed bill as a long overdue effort to update the
Foreign Service Act of 1946. The Secretary of State is to be commended for his
leadership in guiding this bill, in all its complexities, through the Executive
Branch and to the Congress for your consideration because it is a well-written,
well-organized document that updates and revises the old law, and adds several
new provisions that are consistent with the Administration's reform of the
personnel laws governing domestic U.S. Government employees.
The proposed new Foreign Service Act is designed to provide the basic per-
sonnel authority for the employees who serve abroad for each of the foreign
affairs agencies. These agencies include - the Department of State, the United
States International Communication Agency (USICA), the proposed new In-
ternational Development Cooperation Agency (IDCA), and, to a more limited
extent, the Peace Corps and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
We support the concept of a single, comprehensive statute as the basic set of
authorities for the personnel systems of all foreign affairs agencies. At present,
AID utilizes the Foreign Service Act as the basic legislation governing its For-
eign Service personnel. As one of the component agencies of IDCA, AID would
be included within the coverage of the new law.
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We believe that the basic concepts of the Foreign Service as enunciated in the
proposed new statute are entirely appropriate for AID. These include the basic
rank-in-person concept that is essential to a mobile Foreign Service ; the commit-
ment of Foreign Service employees to worldwide availability ; the use of panels
and boards for selection, evaluation, and assignment and the strongly held prin-
ciple that merit and performance, fairly evaluated, are the basis for selection,
advancement and tenure in the Service.
A shared set of legal authorities will help AID, the State Department, and ICA
to collaborate-and to achieve the efficiencies that result from uniformity-in a
number of areas in which, despite the diversity in the work of our several agen-
cies, our needs and interests are similar. We now have joint regulations in a
number of areas. We would expect that, operating under a new umbrella statute,
this collaboration will continue.
We would expect, for example, to continue to have joint regulations covering
travel, overseas allowances and benefits, and the transportation of people and
their effects to posts abroad. We expect that language training and area specialty
training will continue to be offered by the Foreign Service Institute for per-
sonnel of all foreign affairs agencies, and that State will continue to manage
the Foreign Service retirement system for participants from all foreign agencies.
There will continue to be a single Foreign Service Grievance Board to act on
the grievances from employees of all foreign service agencies.
We are also pleased with the provisions in the bill for a single, simplified pay
schedule for all Foreign Service personnel. This change will, in the first place,
simplify and rationalize the pay system by bringing Foreign Service staff em-
ployees within the same pay schedule as other Foreign Service employees and
eliminating the artificial distinction that now exists between Foreign Service
staff employees and other Foreign Service employees.
It is particularly important for AID that there be maximum compatibility in
the rules governing its Foreign Service and Civil Service employees. In testi-
mony presented to the Civil Service Subcommittee on May 2, 1979, when I testi-
fled on this Agency's regulations implementing the "Obey Amendment" (Section
401 of last year's AID authorization act), I said that these two groups of em-
ployees are, in fact, interrelated and function-or should function-as a single
unit. It was and is the Agency's intention, I testified, to encourage unified man-
agement of the Agency's personnel and to facilitate the conversion of employees
from the Civil Service to the Foreign Service.
The proposed new Foreign Service Act would not conflict with the "Obey
Amendment" or the regulations that AID submitted to the Congress on May 1
of this year in response to Section 401. Nor does this bill alter AID's commit-
ment to the policy underlying Section 401. Accordingly, AID, in filling Foreign
Service-designated positions, will follow the regulations promulgated under Sec-
tion 401.
In conclusion, AID supports the bill and believes it to be an excellent set of
authorities to enable us to employ our Foreign Service personnel in ways which
can best achieve the objectives of our administration of the Foreign Assistance
Act.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Nooter, we welcome
you, and let me again refer to my distinguished colleagues, who were
here first, for questions. Congressman Fascell?
Mr. FASCELL. T will pass right now.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I believe you heard a few moments ago my question to Ambassador
Reinhardt pertaining to the time-in-class variations that could occur
under this legislation, applying different regulations to the different
agencies. I wonder if you would comment on that. Do you foresee a
possibility for a bidding-up process?
Mr. NooTER. We endorse the principal of a uniform statute covering
the Foreign Service, but we think it is very important that there be
the latitude for differences in time-in-class among agencies, just as
within our own organization there would be different time-in-class
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rules for different categories of people. We think there are variations
in what is desirable in terms of the objectives of the different agencies
because we possess different professional requirements, and hence, dif-
ferent employment categories. We have not tried to define in detail
what those links would be, but we do very much endorse the idea that
there should be separate agency leeway in terms of making these
determinations.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Second, what have you done lately for spouses?
Mr. NoOTER. We have done some things, but this is a relatively new
problem and we do not have all the answers on it. First, we have tried
to be extremely liberal in adjusting our normal rules about employer-
employee, or supervisory, relationships between employees and wives
who may be working in the same organization. Our General Counsel's
office has been very good in trying to devise ways in which personnel
evaluation reports can be made, for example, without conflict of
interest.
Second, we have encouraged our missions abroad to use whatever
authorities they have, such as the personal services contracts, or per-
sonnel slots that might otherwise be filled by assignment action from
Washington, to be filled by spouses at post. We have worked with the
other agencies, State and ICA, in trying to work out arrangements
with them. Just the other day we agreed to provide our missions addi-
tional leeway on the use of part-time slots so that these can be shifted
between the foreign national and the U.S. categories for situations
where spouses might be employed.
We have taken these steps. I do not know that they are going to be
adequate for the problem we are going to have over the next 10 years,
but we are trying to move in that direction.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I just have to say-I think that is true of you and
the Department of State, and all agencies involved-that it is going
to take some rather persistent encouragement, particularly in the mis-
sions and various places.
Mr. NooTER. I will say, certainly, the policy of the Agency in these
past 2 years has been to encourage that. We know it is important to
have the broadest possible opportunities of employing spouses in the
future because if we do not, it is going to be a major inhibition to
overseas assignments.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Do you favor the mandatory retirement?
Mr. NOOTER. Yes, I do. For the Foreign Service I think it has a use-
ful function.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. SCHRCEDER. Thank you.
Congressman Leach, any questions?
Mr. LEACH. Let me ask-and with little bit of a preface-do you
think that the AID workforce is appropriately balanced between
overseas and home assignments? In asking this I am looking at the
Appropriations Committee report of June 11 of this year which states :
AID has had an excessive number of full time American employees based in
Washington instead of overseas, where the agency's prime mission lies. The ma-
jority of AID employees in the top policymaking positions has not had the over-
seas experience necessary to understand the complex problems of development in
the world's poorest countries, nor are these employees available for overseas duty,
which would give them that experience.
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First, do you think you have about the right ratio today; and sec-
ond, would you concur or dissent from the committee report?
Mr. NOOTER. Well, first, if I could quote John Reinhardt, I think we
are just about right. Quite seriously, in the last several years we have
been working on these issues very intensely and have been examining
them while trying to reduce overall levels, in Washington particularly.
We are under pressure from many different directions. on personnel
level issues. We are under pressure from parts of the Congress to put
more people overseas and have less in Washington. We are under pres-
sure to reduce our overseas positions in line with the general feeling
that there are too many official Americans abroad. That is. a feeling
that both the President and the Secretary have.
Mr. LEACH. Excuse me, let me ask you, is that true of AID? There is
some concern on what the President meant. Do you think his statement
was applying to AID?
Mr. NoOTER. I think his statement was applying to all U.S. Govern-
ment agencies, including AID.
Mr. LEACH. All agencies?
Mr. NoOTER. That is my opinion.
Mr. LEACH. There is some divergence of opinion on whether he
meant all.
Mr. NooTEi. I cannot speak for the President.
Mr. LEACH. Neither can we in Congress.
Mr. NOOTER. The application of the mode ceilings has applied to all
agencies, and this is the instrument through which the President's
policy direction has been carried out. It certainly has applied to us
as well as others, as indeed it should.
On the other hand, we have been under pressure to increase overseas,
for example, to have more auditors abroad in the interest of maintain-
ing the integrity of our fiscal system, program responsibilities, and so
on. We are constantly beleaguered from a number of sides on these
matters.
I would say that we have reduced our Washington staff down about
to the minimum size to permit us to carry on our responsibilities. We
are trying to keep our field staffs down, but decreases will be at the
sacrifice of programs-not necessarily in dollar terms, but in terms of
the kinds of programs we will do. Decisions in that area really have to
be made in regard to what it is we want to accomplish abroad. In other
words, they are not only numerical decisions, they are also program-
matic decisions.
On the other hand, there is a limit as to how far we would want to
go, even if we had carte blanche, in putting direct-hire Americans
abroad. A lot of our work can be done through cooperation with the
Peace Corps, with contractors, or with private voluntary agencies.
The major outreach that we get in countries abroad is through those
devices, rather than through our direct-hire staff which tends to be
more managerial and programmatic.
Mr. LEACH.. I want to follow up quickly on the contracting-out issue.
Are you finding you are increasingly relying on contractors, and is it
more so abroad than here or is it more so here than abroad?
Mr. NOOTER. We do rely on contractors, but it is not such a new
tendency. It is really a trend that started in 1968.
Mr. LEACH. Do you feel it is increasing, decreasing, or holding
stable ?
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Mr. NooTER. It is increasing and will continue to increase at least
somewhat in the years ahead.
Mr. LEACH. Is this in part as a response to personnel ceilings?
Mr. NooTER. Yes. I also think it is a functional solution. It has other
virtues aside from that one. But that certainly is one of them.
Mr. LEACH. So, you are increasing contracting out because of the
personnel ceiling.
Mr. NOOTER. Yes.
Mr. LEACH. Do you realize that is a violation of the law?
Mr. NOOTER. It depends on the function that is involved. I do not
think that it is in violation of the law in the cases where we have
done it.
Mr. LEACH. Section 311 of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
specifically stipulates that contracting out to get around the provisions
of personnel ceilings is illegal.
Mr. NooTER. Again, I would be happy to examine case-by-case in-
stances where we contracted, and I think we can defend those cases.
Mr. LEACH. Let me just ask one other question. Are there any specific
provisions relating to AID which were ultimately left out of this
package? Are there any recommendations that you made that were
left out which you could discuss with us this morning?
Mr. NooTER. No; I think the package is comprehensive. We were
involved in the discussions and took part in the deliberations and
helped to shape the final package. It does represent compromises be-
tween different viewpoints, but that is the way any such arrangement
would be expected to go.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Pritchard.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I noticed in your hiring of spouses, it seems to
change or seems to vary quite a bit from one country to another, one
post from another. Does that mean that you allow a lot of flexibility, or
is it just that you are not able to have everybody follow the same
guidelines?
Mr. NOOTER When you run a worldwide system in which there is a
great deal of delegation of authority to field posts around the world,
there will be differences as to where available and qualified spouses may
be used.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Sure.
Mr. NooTER. I have not heard feedback or complaints that certain
posts were failing to carry out the guidelines. That may be the case,
but it has not come to my attention.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Well, of course, there is interpretation here, that has
to go along.
Mr. NoOTER. Right.
Mr. PRITCHARD. This does seem to be a terribly important thing to
officers overseas, the happiness of their family and the well-being of
the economic structure of their family as to jobs.
Mr. NooTER. At the same time, we do have an obligation to see that
when those hiring choices are made, they are functional.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Absolutely.
Mr. NOOTER. We are not simply running a welfare operation, it does
have to be for a functional purpose.
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Mr. PRITCHARD. That is right. But as a group, I find you have a lot
of very talented wives overseas.
Mrs. SCHROEDER Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. PRITCHARD. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. How about husbands?
Mr. PRrrcHARD. Well, I have not had the complaints from the hus-
bands on that score.
Mr. NooTER. Our new mission director in India happens to be a
woman, and she will be accompanied by her husband who is at the
moment, as I understand it, not employed.
Mr. PRrrcHARD. In so many cases they are lawyers, and they do not
seem to have much problem getting a job. [Laughter.]
You are fairly satisfied, then, with this package?
Mr. NooTER. Yes.
Mr. PRrrcHARD. I have no further questions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Fascell, have you thought of some
questions?
Mr. FASCELL. Oh, yes. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I knew you would not disappoint us.
Mr. FASCELL. I just caught up with the statement. With respect to
the response by the Agency to the Obey amendment and the fact that
this proposed law before us would not in any way alter the Obey
amendment, the publication of the recent regulations complying with
the Obey amendment is in no way contradictory to the pending legis-
lation. I think that is what you said in your statement, is that correct?
Mr. NOOTER. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. I gather, therefore, that somebody-one of your "legal
eagles"-has made a point-by-point comparison of the published regu-
lations as against this proposed legislation. Is that correct? In other
words, you have to have some basis for the statement you just made.
Right?
Mr. NoOTER. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. OK, to save us a lot of time, we would like to have a
copy of that point-by-point comparison so we can see if your "legal
eagle" is right.
Mr. NoOTER. Let me have that submitted for the record. If it is not in
the form that does exactly what you said, we will prepare it.
Mr. FASCELL. OK because I read part of these regulations and if any-
body can understand them, it is amazing.
After positions are designated, as vacancies occur only Foreign Service
employees will be allowed to fill Foreign Service-designated positions except if
the number of non-Foreign Service incumbents is less than 10 percent, other than
Foreign Service employees may fill up to 10 percent of the FS-designated
positions.
I guess it has a meaning, and that meaning is not contradictory to
what is in this law.
Mr. NooTER. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. Good, I will be glad to see that.
[The information referred to follows:]
COMPARISON OF THE OBEY REGULATIONS WITH THE PROPOSED FOREIGN SERVICE
ACT OF 1979
This memorandum compares the regulations submitted to Congress on May 1,
1979 under section 401 of the International Development and Food Assistance
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Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-424) (hereinafter the "Obey regulations") with the
draft of the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 dated June 20, 1979 (herein-
after the "bill"). We conclude that there are no conflicts between the provisions
of the two.
1. Section 220.01 of the Obey regulations is a citation of the authorities pur-
suant to which the regulations are promulgated. Those authorities are section
401 of Public Law 95-424 and section 625 of the Foreign Assistanct Act of 1961, as
amended. Subsection (d) (2) of section 625 authorizes the Agency for Interna-
tional Development (AID) to employ Foreign Service personnel pursuant to the
provisions of the Foreign Service Act of 1946.
The bill would repeal both section 625(d) (2) and the Foreign Service Act of
1946. The bill would not repeal section 401 of the International Development and
Food Assistance Act of 1978, however. That section is full and sufficient authority
for the promulgation of the Obey regulations. Furthermore, section 202 of the
bill would replace the authority of section 625(d) (2) of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 by authorizing the Director of the International Development Co-
operation Agency (IDCA) to utilize the authorities of the Foreign Service Act.
This new legislation would also be sufficient authority for the promulgation of
regulations in terms identical with the Obey regulations.
2. Section 220.02 of the Obey regulations is a statement of purpose, i.e., to
extend the Foreign Service personnel system to all employees of AID, both in the
U.S. and abroad, who are responsible for planning and implementing AID's over-
seas programs. The Obey regulations would not affect the provisions of existing
law, or of section 531 of the bill, that requires Foreign Service personnel to
be available for world-wide assignment. The regulations are therefore consistent
with the bill in this respect. Furthermore, the statement of policy in the Obey
regulations is supportive of the general objective of the bill (see section 101(b) )
to strengthen and improve the Foreign Service.
3. Section 220.03 of the Obey regulations defines "AID" and the "Administra-
tor" of AID. These terms are not used in the bill.
4. Section 220.04 of the Obey regulations: Subsection (a) restates the author-
ity to designate and classify positions as Foreign Service positions. This au-
thority currently exists in section 441 of the Foreign Service Act of 1946, and
would continue to be available to the AID Administrator (through the Director
of IDCA) by means of section 501 of the bill.
Subsection (b) requires designation of each position in AID and provides the
criteria for the choice of designation between General Schedule (GS) and For-
eign Service (FS) positions. The bill is silent on the criteria for position desig-
nation, and there is, therefore, no inconsistency between the Obey criteria and
any provision of the bill. In fact, even if there were no Obey regulations, the
authority of section 501 of the bill is sufficiently broad to permit the Director
of IDCA or the Administrator of AID in the exercise of administrative discretion
to designate positions according to the criteria specified in the Obey regulations.
Subsection (c) provides that positions designated as Foreign Service positions
in accordance with subsection (b) may be occupied (after the current incumbent
leaves the job) only by Foreign Service employees, except that 10 percent of the
Foreign Service designated positions may be filled by other than Foreign Serv-
ice employees. The comparable section of the bill, section 511(b), does not in-
clude this requirement. Instead, it provides only that Foreign Service positions
will "normally" be filled by members of the Foreign Service. Again, though,
the provision of the bill is broad enough to allow a more specific and stringent
requirement to be followed in the exercise of administrative discretion. Under
511(b) AID could do by implementitng regulations what the Obey regulations
require.
Subsection (d) provides that Foreign Service employees on rotation assignment
to Washington may serve in GS-designated positions as well as FS-designated
positions. The bill also allows this by means of section 521.
Subsection (e) provides that GS employees of AID will be encouraged to con-
vert to the Foreign Service, so long as they are willing and qualified to meet all
criteria for service in the Foreign Service, including world-wide availability. This
subsection is entirely consistent with the requirements of the bill (sections 2101
and 2102) with regard to conversions into the Foreign Service.
5. Section 221.01 of the Obey regulations extends the limitations on initial
assignments in the U.S. from two to three years. The two year limitation exists in
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section 625(d) (2) of the Foreign Assistance Act, which would be repealed by the
bill. Since the bill normally allows up to eight years for tours in the U.S. (section
531), a three-year rule is well within the limits established by the bill.
6. Section 221.02 of the Obey regulations restates the authority of the Adminis-
trator to provide tours of duty in the United States and to provide for rotation of
assignments subject to section 933 of the Foreign Service Act of 1946. The citation
to section 933 will be made out of date by the bill, but the bill has a savings clause
(section 2402) which automatically updates such references.
Section 531 of the bill also allows tours of duty in the U.S., with a maximum of
eight years for the length of the tour in normal circumstances. The Obey regula-
tions specify no maximum length of rotational tour in the U.S., but the bill's
eight-year rule of thumb is consistent with the administrative practices AID could
be expected to follow regardless of legislative requirements.
Section 511 also provides for the transfer of employees between assignments in
a way completely consistent with section 221.02 of the Obey regulations.
7. Section 221.01 of the Obey regulations provides a savings clause for existing
regulations and authority to promulgate implementing regulations. Sections 2402
and 201, respectively, of the bill provide for the same things.
8. Section 222.02 of the Obey regulations provides a severability clause with
respect to the construction and interpretation of the regulations. Section 2401 of
the bill has the same kind of provision.
9. Section 222.03 of the Obey regulations provides for an effective date of Octo-
ber 1, 1979. Since there is no inconsistency in substance between the Obey regula-
tions and the bill, the bill's later effective date (January 1, 1980 according to sec-
tion 2404) will not affect the implementation of the Obey regulations.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, how many people do you have now in the agency?
Mr. NOOTER. We have about 3,600 full-time, direct-hire American
employees and about 2,000 local, foreign national employees.
Mr. FASCELL. 3,600 and 2,000, is that the number?
Mr. NOOTER. Correct.
Mr. FASCELL. The total is 5,600.
Mr. NoOTER. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, how many in the United States and how many
verseas?
Mr. NooTER. About 2,100 in the United States and about 1,500 over-
seas.
Mr. FASCELL. 2,100 in Washington, 1,500 overseas, that is American
personnel. The other 2,000 are all overseas.
Mr. NOOTER. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, the Agency's high point in terms of employ-
ent of people was in what year ?
Mr. NoOTER. I believe it would have been 1968.
Mr. FASCELL. What was the employment at that time?
Mr. NooTER. About 17,000.
Mr. FASCELL. In 1968. So, in 10 years in other words h y and
attrition, you are down to 3,600 people. y
Mr. NOOTER. 5,600, including foreign nationals.
Mr. FASCELL. You count them all, I see. So in 10 years you have had
one-third reduction.
Mr. NooTER. A two-thirds reduction. and we are. down to .ahn?+
Mr. FASCELL. I mean a two-thirds reduction.
Mr. NoOTER. Right.
Mr. FASCELL. And that was managed what, in three basic RIF's
era period of years?
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Mr. NooTER. It was mainly managed through attrition. The RIF's
accomplished some portion of it. There were three RIF's of U.S. per-
sonnel; there were individual terminations in missions of foreign
national employees; the balance was through attrition.
Mr. FASCELL. I see. What is the present planning with respect to the
Agency, personnelwise? Is it simply attrition for reduction; holding
the line ; increases?
Mr. NooTER. Our present understanding with OMB is that we are
essentially on a plateau. In other words, our personnel ceiling of 5,760
has been roughly the same for the last 2 years, and we expect it to be
the same out into the next couple of years.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, the proposed reorganization of IDCA, does that
change matters? I guess all of you have looked at that in terms of both
complying with the Obey amendment and this new law.
Mr. NooTER. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. There is no change, or there is a change?
Mr. NooTER. It would have some impact on the way the authorities
are delegated. Where now AID's authorities come through the Sec-
retary of State, under the new arrangement the authorities would go
through the Director of IDCA to the AID Administrator.
Mr. FASCELL. Do you have an analysis of that?
Mr. NooTER. We could submit something for the record that would
clarify it.
Mr. FASCELL. Would you be kind enough to do that, so we have a clear
understanding of the relationship of AID and IDCA as it applies to
personnel and so forth?
Mr. NooTER. We will.
[The information ,referred to follows:]
PERSONNEL AUTHORITIES FOB IDCA AND AID
At the present time, the Agency for International Development (AID) is an
agency within the Department of State. Its authority to employ Foreign Serv-
ice personnel and use the authorities of the Foreign Service Act of 1946 comes
from section 625(d) (2) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended.
In E.O. 10973, the President delegated the authority of section 625(d) (2) to the
Secretary of State and in State Department Delegation No. 104, the Secretary of
State redelegated such authority (with certain exceptions) to the Administra-
tor of AID.
Under Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1979, the International Development Co-
operation Agency (IDCA) will be created as an independent agency with
several component agencies, including AID. Concurrent with the establishment
of IDCA, E.O. 10973 will be superseded by a new Executive Order delegating'
most of the Foreign Assistance Act functions to the Director of IDCA.
If the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 is not enacted, section 625(d) (2)
of the Foreign Assistance Act will remain the basic authority of the foreign as-
sistance agencies to employ Foreign Service personnel. It is expected that this
authority will be delegated by the new Executive Order to the Director of IDCA,
to he exercised in consultation with the Secretary of State. The Director of
IDCA, in turn, will redelegate the authority to the Administrator of AID.
If the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 is enacted, section 625(d) (2) of
the Foreign Assistance Act will be repealed and section 202 of the new law will
give the Director of IDCA direct authority to use the authorities of the Foreign
Service Act without the need of a delegation by Executive Order. Under section
201 of the proposed law, the Director of IDCA will be able to delegate his per-
sonnel authorities to the Administrator of AID.
The regulations submitted to Congress in response to section 401 of Public Law
95-424 (the Obey regulations) will be applicable to AID whether it is under
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IDCA or under the State Department and whether or not the proposed Foreign
Service legislation is enacted. The Obey regulations are not applicable to any
other agency of the U.S. Government.
Mrs. SCIROEDER. I have several questions about the implementation
of the Obey regulations and how they are going. Have you designated
many of the positions yet?
Mr. NooTER. We are working on it. The designation is supposed to
be carried out October 1, and staff work is going on leading to those
decisions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are you consulting with the unions as you go
through this?
Mr. NooTER. Let me ask Mr. Parsons because he is working with
them.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD W. PARSONS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE
OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT, AID
Mr. PARSONS. We have just finished a pilot study establishing cri-
teria for designating positions. This is completed and we are just now
setting up meeings, our first meeting, with the bargaining units to
discuss this and to continue our discussion with the bargaining units
as we go along designating the positions; all of which will be com-
pleted by October 1.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have some questions following up Congressman
Leach's question about how many people were in the United States
versus how many people were abroad, I think, you said you had the
Washington staff down to about as tight a group as you could have,
and you did not think you had too many abroad.
Yet, I look at that 2,100 versus 1,500. It is an interesting phenome-
non. What do you figure it takes in Washington for every person in
the field?
Mr. NoOTER. First, there are a number of functions in Washington
that can only be carried out in Washington. Therefore, the ratio that
you are talking about would only refer to what you would call "sup-
port people" in regard to "field people." I do not know exactly what
part of our staff would be, but it would be a fairly small part of the
Washington staff. It would be the administrative backup, managerial
backup, and so on.
But a large part of the Washington operation is simply carrying
out functions which are required to be done here more or less irrespec-
tive of the number in the field. This operation might have some rela-
tionship to the overall size of the program, but it is not composed
simply of support positions for field operations.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You mean they are just almost departmental posi-
tions, such as running your personnel department?
Mr. NOOTER. Yes. Some portion of the personnel office would of
course relate to the number of people in the field. I was thinking more
along the lines of our research activities. For example, if the Con-
gress indicated it would like us to work on energy programs, to start
those programs we need to do a certain amount of work in Washing-
ton to analyze the problems, find out what technologies are available
and appropriate, and begin to create the information base before ac-
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tivities could start on in the field. There are other activities having to
do with the Congress that have to be done here. There are certain
worldwide programing activities. There is a certain amount of finan-
cial management backup, such as running our payrolls, accounting,
financial systems which would not make any sense to have individual
missions perform these functions because they are much more efficient
to do here.
All of these things tend to dictate the solution. We have already
pressed on this. We have lowered the Washington number from about
2,300 to 2,100 in the last 2 years. We were under great pressure to do
so. We would have liked to go lower, and indeed we set our planning
target much lower originally. We simply found, however, that on a
functional position-by-position review it either did not make sense
to move the position overseas or abolish it, or that such action could
not be accomplished without serious inhibitions to Agency functions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So, you find that a bare minimum?
Mr. NOOTER. I do.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. This bill that we have in front of us, that we are
talking about today, mandates mandatory conversion of "domestic
only" Foreign Service personnel to civil service. As I recall, you had
rejected such an involuntary conversion of your personnel before.
Why have you changed your position?
Mr. NooTER. There is no mandatory conversion involved for AID
in this proposal. We do not have people in that category as ICA does.
I am really not familiar with the nature of those problems or the
difficulties they have. I heard, of course, Mr. Reinhardt's testimony
today.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You escaped.
Mr. NooTER. We escaped.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Well, that is a good reason not to take a position.
I assume AID does have a "whistle blower" provision.
Mr. NooTER. Yes; as provided in the general Civil Service Act.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What has been your experience with the selection
out for substandard performance in AID?
Mr. NoorER. We used selection out until about 8 years ago. We
dropped it at that time, as the Departntent of State did. They recently
reinstituted it in the last year or two, although we have not. There
are certain legal inhibitions to selection out as it used to be practiced,
which State believes they have resolved. We are looking at the current
selection-out guidelines we have in our regulations, but we have not
reinstituted it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Will you reinstitute it when this bill is passed?
Mr. NooTER. I expect that we will, but it is a provision that each
agency will have the option to review and consider implementing, de-
pending on its appropriateness for its particular service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you feel this bill at all strengthens the Secre-
tary of State and thereby reduces the autonomy of AID?
Mr. NooTER. No; our understanding is that each agency would be
able to adapt the statute to its own requirements similar to what is
done now. The statute is drawn somewhat more narrowly, but the
restrictions would come from the statute, not from the role of the
Secretary.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have a lot more questions, but I think I am going
to submit them for the record in the interest of time, and the fact
that we are in session.
Mr. Pritchard, do you have further questions?
Mr. PRITCHARD. No questions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I thank you very much for appearing this morning.
We appreciate your insights into this, and it certainly will be an
exciting summer to work through this bill. Thank you.
Mr. NooTER. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11 a.m. the subcommittees adjourned, to reconvene
at the call of the Chair.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
MONDAY, JULY 9, 1979
HousE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMrrPEE ON POST' OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 2 p.m. in room 2127, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Patricia Schroeder (chairwoman of the Sub-
committee on Civil Service) presiding.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Today we hear from employee organizations rep-
resenting Federal employees in the Department of State, the Agency
for International Development, and the International Communication
Agency. The drafters of this legislation have consulted with the
Amerioan Federation of Government Employees and the American
Foreign Service Association.
Consequently, some of the more abrasive proposals have been
,moothed down. Still, profound and serious disagreements remain on
;ertain elements of the bill.
I am committed to strong labor-management relations in the Fed-
3ral Government. I believe that Government is more productive, more
,fficient, and more humane if workers believe that they have a signifi-
ant role in shaping their own working environment. Hence, I do not
,hink that Congress should override lightly the wishes of employees
n its consideration of this legislation.
Our first witness is Mr. Stephen Koczak of the American Federa-
;ion of Government Employees, AFL-CIO.
We welcome you and we will be delighted to hear what you say.
Would you introduce the people accompanying you and maybe you
vuld like to summarize your statement and we will put it in the
record in toto.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN KOCZAK, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES
Mr. KOCZAK. Madam Chairwoman, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Blaylock,
whose testimony this is, asked me to convey his apologies for his ab-
nce today. He had to change his agenda unexpectedly and he has
sked me to obtain your permission to make. a statement on his be-
alf, if that is agreeable to you. Before proceeding, I should like to
troduce the persons who would have been accompanying him, who
Vre here today with me. They are Mr. Henry Cope from local 1534
(85)
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86
at the State Department, the Agency for International Develop-
ment, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation ; Mr. Sig
Moody, Vice President of the same local, also to my immediate left.
To my immediate right Mr. Abe Harris, president of local 1812 at
the International Communication Agency and at the extreme left,
Ms. Mary Jacksteit, staff counsel for that local.
I do appreciate your invitation to have our statement put completely
into the record. I think it runs to something like 110 pages and we
will try to summarize the salient portions of it. Perhaps the easiest
would be to recite the table of contents, because we will try to skip
some elements, to place emphasis on those portions which the Gov-
ernment witnesses, the administration witnesses have overlooked.
That might be one way we can focus on those matters at dispute.
The table of contents basically, goes to the subject of decline of the
foreign affairs agencies in foreign policy formulation; the very impor-
tant subject of labor management relations; the issue of the Senior
Foreign Service, pay comparability, specific proposals on retirement
and selection-out; and a series of special problems primarily at Inter-
national Communication Agency. Most important of these ICA prob-
lems is the foreign affairs specialist program about which there is a
great deal of misunderstanding on the part of those administration
witnesses who do not represent ICA management.
Then we would like to discuss the autonomy of the U.S. Interna-
tional Communication Agency and what we say about its role applies
equally to the Agency for International Development.
The Voice of America, we believe, needs some attention as well in this
legislation-its broadcasting missions and personnel policies, fringe
benefits for its employees (especially those serving with Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty), and retirement equity for a few people who
had served as binational center employees for what was then the U.S.
Information Agency. Then we discuss the subject of spouses over-
seas, ICA and AID, and how they do not receive the same considera-
tion in posts abroad as spouses of the Department of State employees
overseas.
We have introduced the special problems of the Agency for Inter-
national Development, particularly problems which have arisen under
the so-called Obey amendment which gives us a great deal of con-
cern because the Obey amendment's purpose ostensibly was 'to see
to it that more people went abroad. It is not achieving that purpose
because of the ceiling placed by the Secretary of State on AID person
nel who can be assigned abroad and not a single additional position
will be established abroad. All this amendment in effect unintention-
ally does is create the equivalent of domestic-Foreign Service at home
because the only positions that are going to be identified and seques-
tered will be those at home.
At the present time at the Agency for International Developmen
all positions are available for being encumbered by anybody. The mos
qualified person, Foreign Service or civil service, can get that posi
tion. Under the new regulations they will be segregated and if you ar
in a Foreign Service you are able to get it automatically without meri
competition. In effect it exempts, these positions for affirmative actin
statutes and from upward mobility programs.
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We think it sets up unnecessarily a caste system which does not exist
at the Agency for International Development today while failing to
achieve its primary purpose, which is to get people abroad. That is
the peculiar irony of this whole situation.
We hope you could address that ironic anomaly because it does touch
on the whole subject of the limited role of the Department of State
in its relation to the other Federal departments (such as Agriculture
and Commerce) that want to send people abroad and are are able to
do so while and in fact ICA and AID are unable to send their own
professionals abroad under ceilings set by the Secretary of State.
With that, I would like to proceed to a more systematic summary of
our statement emphasizing those issues which are in dispute and about
which we think there has been considerable misunderstanding.
Mr. FASCELL. That list you just read, is that a summary of the points
you intend to cover now?
Mr. KOCZAK. No, of the basic document.
Mr. FASCELL. So that summary of agenda that you read covers what
is in this statement.
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. I wanted to be sure.
Mr. KoczAK. We are in fundamental disagreement with the proposed
legislation to amend the Foreign Service Act, which we believe is
inadequate and regressive.
Legislation to reform the foreign service system should be address-
ing fundamental problems which concern those interested in the for-
eign policy of the United States. These problems are due in part to
institutional fragmentation of our foreign policy and of our presence
abroad.
The traditional foreign affairs agencies, Department of State. AID,
and ICA collectively represent less than one in three persons serving
overseas. They are threatened with even greater encroachments from
the Departments of Agriculture. Commerce. Energy. and the Treasury,
in addition to the burden of their continuing task to accommodate
personnel of the Central Intelligence Agency.
We petition your two committees to assess and to increase the
strengths of the traditional foreign affairs agencies to meet the chal-
lenges to U.S. prestige abroad and the international crises which will
arise in the future. Unless the present trend to fragmentation is re-
versed, our moral and political national leadership, we fear, will falter
worldwide.
It is from this most universal and fundamental point of view that
we offer our comments today.
Any reforms undertaken should serve as a model for the operation
7f all programs involving American Government employees abroad.
ost of all, any reform should preserve the essential safeguards which
ave been accorded to the Foreign Service after years of struggle and
ragedy and serve to increase, rather than diminish, the ability of
mployees and management to work harmoniously with collegiality
nd without confrontation.
In addition, legislation can and should address the issue raised by
he Director of USICA of the growing reluctance of Foreign Service
mployees to serve abroad, due to the financial burden, the increased
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dangers from-terrorism, and the growing dilemma posed by the em-
It is in an attempt to respond to these problems that we propose, in
to insure true comparability of pay not only by a
pensation-first
,
realistic linkage of civil service and Foreign Service scales, but also
for worldwide duty with a $2,000 minimum and $5,000 maximum; and,
Government employees in hazardous and stressful occupations such as
air traffic controllers, by increasing the computation to 2.5 percent
It is also in this spirit that we oppos chapter 10 of the legislation
and request inclusion of Foreign Service employees under the labor-
management provisions of title V while retaining existing bargaining
the
-- -
u
And, finally, it is out of this concern for increasing the effective-
- -
- --a--
tion that we criticize the proposed Senior Foreign Service as sacrific-
ing minimal employee protections for alleged management flexibility
without regard to the obvious and serious implications of arbitrari-
ness and partisan politicization as it is perceived very clearly by the
We should like to call to your attention that the administration pro-
posed precisely this very same formula for the civil service senior
a better formula which is now law. We invoke the same congressiona
With specific regard to the Agency for International Development,
ostensible compliance with the so-called Obey amendment, are illega
and mischievous. We object to the "caste" system which they are de
signed to achieve. We are attaching to our testimony on this subjec
our complete statement before the House Subcommittee on Civi
Service of May 2, 1979.
There are many more specific and important issues raised by th
proposed legislation which we have dealt with in some length in ou
testimony. In the interest of time, we will not review them now bu
However, there is one issue which requires some discussion becaus
relative to it. I refer to the issue of the domestic Foreign Service em
by a negotiated agreement between that Agency and our local 1812
'
Initially, we would like to reiterate that AFGE energetically op
posed the so-called foreign affairs specialist program which wa
designed by the Department of State to bring domestic based employ
ees, in fact all Agency employees above the GS-7 level, into the For
We sued, unsuccessfully, to block its institution gaining only a de
lay in implementation. When the preliminary injunction was lifted b
the court and the Agency, then USIA, proceeded again to impleme
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the program, many, if not most, of the civil service employees joined
FAS.
This is because it was made clear that in no other way would further
advancement or promotion be possible. According to the rules estab-
lished by the Agency, these employees after 3 years became partici-
pants in the Foreign Service retirement and disability system.
Within a brief time, the weaknesses of the program became appar-
ent, even to management. A new administration in USIA finally pro-
posed that the program be brought to an end. Local 1812 heartily agreed
and together union and management negotiated a way to phase out
the program in a manner preserving the rights of all parties : First,
the Agency stopped hiring FAS employees and agreed to bring all new
domestic employees into the civil service. Second, selection boards
ceased to decide promotions and FAS employees were brought under
a new merit promotion plan incorporating civil service principles and
applying to all domestic employees. Third, FAS employees were of-
fered the opportunity to convert back to civil service by a transfer to
he civil service retirement system. With regard to voluntary con-
ersion, the Agency wanted a cutoff date for employees to make their
ecision and the union agreed to make that date June 30, 1981.
With regard to other elements of the agreement-the voluntary
ature of conversion, the merit promotion procedures, et cetera-
hese the parties intended to continue beyond June 1981 unless other
erms were agreed to.
Since the date of this agreement, many employees have converted
o the civil service and, by this means, and through attrition, the num-
er of FAS employees has begun to decrease. It was in the midst of this
rocess that we received the State Department proposal to force
onversion to the civil service of not only its employees but those
t USICA as well.
We objected and still object to this effort to cancel a negotiated
greement by legislation-an agreement based on the good faith judg-
ents of both the union and management that a voluntary conversion
6ystem is likely to do the least amount of violence to both the rights
nd sensibilities of a group of employees who are wearied by a suc-
ession of personnel experiments undertaken at their expense and
ever in their interests.
I would be pleased at this stage, in the interest of time, if you
ould like to address your questions to us-,alternatively, we could
roceed to the section on the labor-management relations which we
elieve could best be served, in the interest of all parties, by having
11 members of the Foreign Service come under title VII of the Civil
ervice Reform Act of 1978.
(Mr. Blaylock's prepared statement, presented by Stephen Koczak,
ollows :]
TATEMENT OF KENNETH T. BLAYLOCK, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERA-
TION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, PRESENTED BY STEPHEN KOCZAK
Madam Chairwoman, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the House For-
ign Affairs and House Post Office and Civil Service Committees, I am most
-ratified to have this opportunity to testify on matters affecting the personnel of
he foreign service and the civil service of the United States. I believe it is an
uspicious occasion that both committees of the House of Representatives are
blued in this enterprise. Under these conditions, the dreadful segregation of these
ervices may begin to be eliminated and the needs of the United States and of its
ersonnel seen from a larger perspective.
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Our union represents approximately 25,000 Federal employees whose missions
are involved with U.S. foreign policy. or U.S. physical presence overseas. We are
the exclusive representative of all employees, civil service and foreign service, in
the International Communication Agency. We represent all the civil service
employees in the Agency for International Development and some civil service
employees in the Department of State. We have a separate Council of Foreign
Affairs Employees to coordinate our representation at these so-called Foreign
Affairs agencies. In addition, we have an entire District, the Fifteenth,' within
ments, including employees in the Panama Canal area, Germany, Italy, and other
foreign countries for whom we have won exclusive representation. Thus, our
membership is fully cognizant of the importance and wide ramification of foreign
and reactionary. They incorporate time-worn procedures for promoting, selecting
do not oppose reform and change. But we believe that this bill should, as the Civil
Service Reform Act did, seek a balance between management flexibility and pro-
tection of merit principles and employee rights. The bill in its present form does
I earnestly beseech you, with the expertise you have available to this joint
undertaking of two Committees, to consider the rare opportunity you have to draft
Foreign Service legislation. The Foreign Service Act has not been re-written since
THE DECLINE OF THE "FOREIGN AFFAIRS AGENCIES"
present ambitions of such other Federal agencies as the Department of Com
merce and the Department of Agriculture, which wish to operate abroad with
I submit to you that this is the prospect which you should bear in mind whe
drafting new legislation for the foreign service. The Department bill is length
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LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS
It is evident that the foreign service should be placed under the provisions
of Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The labor-management
title in the proposed bill does not grant full collective bargaining to members
of the Foreign Service.
We believe in universality of protection for all employees. As we hope you
will perceive from our report on the origin of the Foreign Affairs Specialist pro-
gram, the only assurance that such bizarre undertakings are prevented is to have
labor-management relations governed by the same principles as those which
apply everywhere else where there are American employees of the Federal
government.
The Foreign Service was originally excluded from the provisions of Title VII
of the Civil Service Reform Bill, in part because of the alleged jurisdiction
problems between the Post Office and Civil Service and Foreign Affairs Com-
mittees. Such problems do not confront us today because these committees have
agreed to hold joint hearings.
Further as seen with the implementing legislation for the Panama Canal
Treaties, where coverage of Title VII was extended to employees of the Panama
Canal Commission employees who are not American citizens, it is feasible to
extend coverage to those categories previously not incorporated.
We favor the incorporation of foreign service personnel under the very fine
provisions of Title VII by an amendment to that act deleting the following
language under exclusions :
"(iv) an officer or employee in the Foreign Service of the United States em-
ployed in the Department of State, the Agency for International Development
or the International Communication Agency."
We believe this would be the most judicious and appropriate manner to
proceed. We oppose the provisions of the Administration proposal for labor-
management relations because it is redundant and would deprive foreign service
personnel of the protections and the procedures established by the Federal
Labor Relations Authority, and the Federal Service Impasses Panel.
You will hear, with justification, of two problems which concern members
of our union and of the American Foreign Service Association with such a
simple action. One concerns the issue of "world-wide" representation ; the other
concerns so-called "supervisors" being in the unit.
Both problems arise from the ambiguities in the "rank-in-person" and "world-
wide availability" requirements of foreign service personnel. Consequently,
these need to be perceived in their fundamental relationship to the subject
of appropriate unit and supervisor.
Under the "rank-in-person" system an individual is not tied to any position
in the foreign service, but is reassigned with regularity. Even at the highest
rank, a position does not involve per se any supervisory function, since even
the highest ranking officer cannot rank anybody in relation to any other officer.
Only the selection panels can do that. Nor is there an exercise of any other of
the managerial functions in hiring, assigning, and dismissing foreign service
personnel. These are all handled by centralized or collegial bodies.
The problems of management, and the abuses of management, consequently
reside in the anonymities of centralized administration and collegial bodies.
These are the real managers of the foreign service. It is against their anony-
mous action that even the most senior foreign service officers and personnel
need the protections of the world wide unit in which all foreign service per-
sonnel are members.
The Congress no doubt has in mind the protection of the clerical and tech-
nical and professional personnel from the abuse of power by senior career
personnel. The question can be asked : How can a secretary or typist speak up
in a meeting of the union representing foreign service personnel if the super-
visor or manager can sit by right in the same meeting. Does this not reduce
labor-management relations to management manipulation? We have not found
this to be the case. Common interests, particularly in working conditions over-
seas, create a collegiality among Foreign Service employees. Conflicts can be
resolved by resort to'the Grievance Board.
We recognize and concede there are problems. It is precisely for this reason
that we wish to have the entire foreign service placed under the jurisdiction
of Subpart F-Labor-Management and Employee Relations of Title V of the
U.S. Code, to assure that the fullest measure of supervision over the activities
of both management and labor in the foreign service takes place by the Federal
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92.
Labor Relations Authority. We can think of no better way to assure that abuses
are avoided and that collective bargaining rights are at least equivalent, and
preferably identical, with those of other employees of the Federal government,
who are not in the Foreign Service.
Having said this, we believe that it is necessary to permit the retention of
the present world-wide units and the present membership in the units and
leave all other matters to the jurisdiction of the Federal Labor Relations
Authority. For the reasons we have given and the weaknesses which we per-
ceive, we oppose totally the enactment of legislation such as that proposed by
the Administration as Chapter 10 of its draft bill, entitled Labor-Management
Relations. Such a separate Foreign Service Labor Relations system would be
both administratively redundant and, we fear, not serve the best interests of
either management or labor.
THE FOREIGN SERVICE GRIEVANCE BOARD
The push for a grievance procedure for Foreign Service employees began in
the early 1970's when the absence of due process in the system was fast becoming
a public scandal. Senator Bayh first introduced a bill in 1971 establishing an
independent grievance board. The State Department resisted and opposed this
measure, successfully arguing to Congress. that a procedure should be negotiated
under the new Executive Order 11636, providing for labor-management relations
in the Foreign Service. However, the Department failed to engage in meaningful
negotiations with the employee representative-instead it proceeded to establish
its own "interim" procedure which was seriously flawed. Agitation for an effec-
tive grievance procedure grew, spurred by the tragic suicide of Charles William
Thomas, a Foreign Service officer selected-out without due process, and the
formation of the Thomas Legal Defense Fund which began litigation that re-
sulted in the court decision in 1973 holding the selection-out procedures uncon-
stitutional. AFGE and AFSA continued to press for a bill in Congress and
Senator Bayh persistently introduced his bill in each session of Congress. Finally,
the pressure became irresistible when all public members of the interim board
resigned in 1974 after AID refused to abide by a Board decision. In 1975 Con-
gress enacted the grievance legislation that now exists. The text is the product
of the collective efforts of the employee representatives, Congressional staffs
and foreign, affairs agencies. The procedure has wide acceptability among mem-
bers of the Service. The Foreign Service Grievance Board consists of prestigious
arbitrators from the labor field and retired Foreign Service officers-all of whom
are subject to selection and renewal by unanimous agreement of the parties using
the Board-AFGE, AFSA, AID, USICA, and the State Department. Its operating
regulations were negotiated with the unions, and conferral on issues relating to
the operation of the Board occurs on a regular basis.
We have been generally satisfied with our experience-grievants have a full
and fair opportunity to be heard, the union has been able to establish a good
working relationship with Board members and staff, transcripts are available on
a timely basis without cost, and decisions are published regularly. We welcome
the addition made in section 1024 to the Board's jurisdiction of union grievances
concerning violations of negotiated agreements-such a mechanism has been
lacking in our labor-management system. On the other hand, we do not favor
the State-originated proposal to make the union the exclusive representative for
grievants within the bargaining unit. The Foreign Service Grievance Board is a
statutory appeal body set up by Congress for all members of the Service. Its
jurisdiction covers many matters which a Civil Service employee would have the
right to appeal through statutory procedures. This proposal would result in bar-
gaining unit members having fewer rights than non-unit members who would
have access to the Board with any representative of their choosing. The State
Department proposal is evidently aimed at over-taxing the resources of the
unions and at limiting the number of grievances. We ask that Congress reject
this effort. After serious consideration of this issue, we firmly believe that free-
dom of choice with regard to representation is most compatible with the nature
of the Foreign Service Grievance Board. It is therefore our request that the
present language of subsection (b) of section 1103 be deleted and replaced with
the following :
"The grievant has the right to a representative of his or her own choosing at
every stage of the proceedings. The grievant and his/her representative(s) who
are under the control, supervision or responsibility of the forign affairs agencies
shall be granted reasonable periods of administrative leave to prepare, be present
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and to present the grievance. Where the grievant is not represented by the
exclusive bargaining representative for Foreign Service employees of the agency,
the exclusive representative shall have the right to be present during the griev-
ance proceedings."
Having expressed our endorsement of the existing procedure we would like
to point to one area where the procedure could be significantly strengthened
and made comparable to the binding arbitration that is generally used by
unions and management. The procedure currently provides that with respect
to certain matters, particularly assignment, promotion and discipline, the
Board may only recommend a remedy to the agency head who may consider
whether to follow the recommendation based upon "the needs of the Service".
We have found this provision troubling and not infrequently resorted to. The
refusal of the agency to follow a recommendation leaves the grievant with
only the choice of going to court, a choice that may not be realistic in terms
of cost and the issues at stake. We therefore would propose the following
amendment to chapter 11, section 1113: delete subsection (d) and add to sub-
section (b) a new paragraph (5) stating, "to promote an employee who is found
to have previously failed to receive proper consideration. Promotion may be
retrocative where the Board finds that, but for the failure to be considered,
the grievant would have been promoted."
This feature of the proposed legislation is clearly patterned after Title IV
of the Civil Service Reform Act establishing the Senior Executive Service. The
opportunity to create this executive corps was obviously a major incentive for
developing the bill. But there are significant areas where the SFS proposal
departs from the SES model, and in our view these departures are to the detri-
ment of the Foreign Service. Passage of the SFS provisions as now written
would, in our view, have unfortunate consequences for not only the Service,
but also for the conduct of the nation's foreign policy. Among USICA Foreign
Service officers there is overwhelming concern with the possibility that the
SFS as now designed will permit wholesale politicization of the Foreign Serv-
ice and discourage discussion, dissent and professional development. This con-
cern should not be difficult to understand. The combination of variable time-in-
class and the so-called limited extension could be used to eliminate an entire
class of officers not satisfying a Director's political bent, within a period as
short as two or three years, by establishing time-in-class at one or two years
and permitting no, or few, limited extensions.
While no one accuses the drafters of the bill with such intentions, there have
been in the past, and there will be again, administrators who are capable of
such action. Even absent the most extreme situation, the lack of certainty
about one's status is going to foster caution, not courage. We are not opposed
to making advancement and retention more directly dependent on performance.
But the proposed SFS goes far beyond what is either necessary or adviseable.
Let me make specific reference to those aspects of the SFS which are with-
out parallel in the SES and which we find objectionable.
(1) The absence of a "parachute clause" for those removed from the Senior
Foreign Service after expiration of time-in-class or non-renewal of a limited
extenson. The SES system provides that a member who is removed for reasons
of performance (not misconduct or malfeasance) is entitled to placement in a
non-SES position at the GS-15 level or above. This safeguard is a neutral com-
panion to the stringent provisions regarding retention and removal. In our
view no less should be provided in the SFS. As in the Civil Service, an employee
in the Foreign Service may be fully capable of work at the FS-1 yet be deemed
unsuitable for the SFS, possibly for reasons not in the least reflecting on the
employee's abilities. As the bill is now written, an officer who is particularly
able could reach, enter and be dropped from the SFS before the age of fifty while
still retaining skills and knowledge important to the agency.
The disincentive for achievement for the employee is as obvious as the dis-
advantage to the agency. We therefore propose that section 641 be amended
to allow officers dropped from the SFS by expiration of time-in-class or non-
renewal of limited extension to retreat to the FS-1 level for the time remain-
ing, if any, in the time-in-class period for class 1 (counting time previously
served in class 1 and in the SFS). This could be achieved by adding a new
subsection (c) to section 641 as follows:
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"(c) Members of the Senior Foreign Service who are not granted a limited
extension or whose limited extension is not renewed shall be entitled to re-
turn to the FS-1 level and assigned to a non-SFS position for the period, if any,
remaining to be served in class 1 under applicable time-in-class rules for class I.
In determining the time remaining, periods previously served in class 1 and pe-
riods served in the Senior Foreign Service shall be subtracted from the time in
class period."
(2) The "limited extension": This concept has no equivalent in the SES.
It is a mechanism which will give enormous power to the agency head in re-
tention decisions for those in the SFS and discretion to exercise that power
without regard to performance factors. It is true that decisions granting and
renewing extensions will be made upon selection board recommendations, but
the agency head will determine the number of extensions to be given and could
allow none or very few. In combination with the authority to set and change
time-in-class limits it will therefore be possible for the agency head to keep
SFS members in a constant state of uncertainty about their future. At that
point, dissent and creativity will be a luxury few will be able to afford. For a
profession in which performance is not easily quantified * * * and where personal
integrity and courage are vital to the national interest, we think such measures
are particularly ill-advised. It is our view that the provision in section 641 for
"limited extensions" be deleted, that a , minimum time-in-class period be es-
tablished for the SFS.
(3) Section 602(b) ; The Department indicates in its sectional analysis that
the objective of the SFS is to create a corps with rigorous entry, promotion
and retention standards based on performance, but provides in this section that
consideration should be given to the need for attrition.
The necessity and purpose of this provision are not immediately clear, but
the provision appears to conflict with the merit principles incorporated into the
bill. Under merit principles, employees are to be retained on the basis of the
adequacy of their performance. When agency managements determine the num-
ber of promotoin opportunities and selections into the SFS, they will surely
consider this factor without a legislative mandate to do so. In our view, this
section should be deleted.
With the modifications we suggest the Senior Foreign Service would still give
the agencies the flexibility desired but without the sacrifice of legitimate inter-
ests of both employees and the public. The stringent measures sought in the
bill have not been justified to our satisfaction. For USICA, the Director him-
self made the case, in a March 26 letter to Mr. Read in which he reported :
"Attrition and shorter promotion lists at USICA in the last two years have
brought us a long way toward removing the surplus of senior officers. * * * Today,
the number of officers at the class 1-3 levels and the number of jobs classified
at those ranks are at parity and the historic imbalance has been resolved. I'm
convinced, therefore, that current legislative authority and internal adminis-
trative practices are sufficient to deal with any potential future problems of
senior officer impartment."
Without modification, the SFS proposal will result in damage to the integrity
of the Foreign Service and worsen rather than improve the personnel system.
One of the most critical problems, associated with proper classification, in
the area of personnel practices is appropriate pay. The Administration draft
is silent on its specific character and we consider this one of the many serious
weaknesses in the bill.
Our union endorses fully the principle that Foreign Service personnel be
assured of proper classification, equivalent to those provided civil service em-
ployees. We feel that, just as civil service employees now enjoy overtime pay,
foreign service employees should be entitled to the same provisions. Consequent-
ly, we request that you include in your legislation the provision that both base
and premium pay for foreign service personnel shall be determined in the same
manner as ray for civil service employees by proper "linkwge" established by
the Federal Pay Agent and Federal Employees Pay Council. The simplest way
to achieve this would be to restate that the provisions of Title V, U.S. Code, which
incorporates the authority of the Pay Agent and Pay Council, apply to the
foreign service.
However, even if this were done. foreign service employees would not have
pay comparability because civil service employees are not subject to world wide
service. to the attendant disrurtionc in their assignments, to the stresses in
their personal and family lives. For this reason, we propose that foreign service
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personnel be paid, at all times, a tax exempt allowance to compensate them for
this aspect of their governmental service. I should like to suggest the following
language as a model or outline for your consideration.
"',Vhe compensation of all foreign service personnel shall be the same as the
comparable grade in the General Schedule excepting that foreign service per-
sonnel shall be paid a further tax-exempt allowance of 15 percent additional be-
cause of their availability to serve world-wide ; provided that, in no case shall
this allowance be less than $2,000 and not more than $5,000. This allowance shall
be in addition to any other allowance which may be authorized."
The minimum and maximum allowances I have suggested are to assure that
clerical and other personnel in the lower grades are adequately compensated
and that personnel in the higher grades, particularly in the Foreign Senior
Exceutive Service, if it is established, do not benefit disproportionately from
other members of the Foreign Service.
There is a myth that "selection out" and early mandatory retirement at age
60 is a feature of the foreign service alone. It exists in the civil service as
well for special categories, particularly the officers of the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation, other law enforcement groups, firefighters and air traffic control-
lers and employees of the Alaska Railroad. In fact, for most of them, man-
datory retirement is at a lower age than 60. I request permission to include as
Attachment II hereto extracts from Title V, sections 8335 and 8336 on Manda-
tory Separation and Immediate Retirement. But there are two major differ-
ences. First, these persons can continue to stay in the civil service in other
functions Lesides their original specialties. Second, their annuities are com-
puted, for the first twenty years of service at 2.5 percent, and not the 2.0 percent
offered foreign service personnel. To qualify for this larger annuity, they con-
tribute 7.5 percent to their retirement annuity instead of 7.0 percent.
I should like to suggest that all foreign service personnel required to serve
world wide be brought under provisions similar to those afforded these
categories I mentioned.
Under my proposal these computation formulas would be portable, so that
any separated foreign service officer would be eligible for the higher 2.5 percent
rate for all their actual foreign service.
In summary, the following retirement provisions would apply to all persons
in the foreign service : First twenty years computed at 21/2 percent ; remainder
at 2 percent, with voluntary retirement at any age after five years service
abroad.
There are several problems at the International Communication Agency
which are the result of past errors made by the Department of State in seeking
to establish a domestic foreign service. The one most frequently mentioned
in testimony by Administration spokesmen concerns the so-called Foreign Af-
fairs Specialist category, a term of art for "domestic foreign service" person-
nel. Among the other problems are such matters as employment rights at the
Voice of America, retirement credit for former Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib-
erty personnel and for retired Bi National Grantees, and the employment of
spouses of ICA personnel abroad.
None of the Administration spokesmen have informed you that our union
was admantly opposed to the introduction of the Foreign Affairs Specialist
program. In fact, we were so much opposed that we spent $50,000 in legal fees
bringing a suit against James Keogh, Director USIA, and Henry A. Kissinger,
Secretary of State, to declare its installation to be illegal.
We had a partial superficial victory, in as much as Judge Howard J. Corcoran
required that the only persons who could be appointed to the Foreign Affairs
Specialist category had first to serve three years as Foreign Service Reserve
Officers or Foreign Service Reserve Unlimited Officers. However, since Judge
Corcoran did not specify that these three years had to be served overseas, we
lost the essence of our suit and the Foreign Affairs Specialist program was in-
stalled both at the State Department and at the United States Information
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Agency, over our strongest objections. With your permission, I should like to
append hereto, at the very end of all the other attachments, a copy of the court
service personnel out of the civil service category in order to free management
from the civil service safeguards provided to all civil service employees.
Why then did our members join the Foreign Affairs Specialist program'? Be-
cause concurrently with its introduction, positions in the higher grades were
withdrawn from civil service competition and restricted only to personnel who
were in the FAS or other foreign service category. Civil service category person-
nel had available only "dead-end" jobs. If one did not join FAS, one would not
get a promotion. If one did join, one was assured an immediate increase in pay
and greater opportunity for promotion as a reward for voluntary entry:
Why did the State Department want to use this peculiar Foreign Affairs
Specialist program-why did it insist that the Attorney General oppose our
suit? For one simple reason. It was opposed to the existence of personnel rights
based on some outside authority or statute to which its employees could appeal.
You may recall that this is the period when the State Department waged war
on its personnel. This is the period when Charles William Thomas committed
suicide because the management of the Foreign Service did not wish to admit
it had committed a grievous error in selecting him out. This is the period when
the Charles William Thomas Legal Defense Fund brought a successful suit, also
costing $50,000, to assure that the personnel records of foreign service personnel
did not contain false or ex parte information. This was the period when the
Congress finally passed the grievance procedures which became self-evidently
necessary following our suits.
After our union achieved victory over a rival organization to represent
foreign service personnel, we proceeded to attack the inequities of the system
from the inside. Ultimately we reached an agreement with a new administration
in USICA to bring the program to an end. This is the "contract" about which
there has been so much discussion. Management agreed to stop hiring FAS
employees. We agreed to eliminate selection boards for FAS employees and to
permit these personnel to exercise the right all other civil service personnel
have-to bid on jobs in the civil service category: On the other hand we obtained
reaffirmation of the commitment, an enticement by management, that retirement
would be under the foreign service, including mandatory retirement at 60, if a
person chose to remain under such an appointment. For those preferring other-
wise, we obtained a guarantee that they could convert to Civil Service status
essentially as a matter of right until June 30. 1981.
I want to emphasize these were concessions made to us for the manipulation
and coercion of our personnel under the FAS program.
To our Local 1812, this agreement represents the considered judgment of both
the union and management as to the fairest way to phase out the FAS program.
Obviously the agency concluded that the existence of a residential force of
domestic foreign service employees was something that could be lived with. In
the case of both the union and the agency, the desire was to find the most equi-
table ending to the unhappy history of FAS. Should there be reasons why the
Congress would feel it could not continue this arrangement, we would petition
that the principal elements of the contract be preserved for the individual FAS
members after their mandatory conversion as personal prerequisites. These are :
(1) right to retire voluntarily on present foreign service computation
formula (2 percent for all years of service). They would not have the right
to invoke the 21/, percent retirement formula which I have proposed for
persons who serve overseas.
(2) right to retain permanently their classification and pay under the
FAS rank-in-person formula in the event of downgrading of any position
they may occupy.
(3) exemption from "selection out" except for reasons identical with dis-
missal for cause in the civil service.
(4) full access to the protections afforded all civil service employees
under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
(5). right to voluntarily convert to the civil service at any time up to
June 30, 1981.
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From the beginning of public discussion on a proposal to reform the Foreign
Service personnel system we have been concerned with the role of USICA. The
proposal was solely a State Department initiative-discussion with USICA
management and employee representatives was, from our perspective, minimal
at the early stages. By the time our comments were seriously solicited and by the
time the Director submitted his comprehensive response to the Department, the
issue was not whether there would be a reform bill, but only what form specific
measures would take within the general format already adopted by the Depart-
ment. We found very persuasive the arguments made by Director Reinhardt in
his March 26 letter to Under-Secretary Read, that certain problems at which
the proposal was aimed do not exist in USICA or are well on their way to
solution. But obviously the Department was beyond the point of willingness to
either reconsider its decision to move ahead with omnibus legislation, or seri-
ously depart from its proposals. Thus, the record should be clear that this legis-
lation was not designed with USICA in mind.
Our task, and that of the agency, in the last few months has been to try to
modify the bill to a form that a least can be lived with. That effort has only
been minimally successful. We agree that improvements have been made, par-
ticularly in the area of returning to each agency head the authority to make
specific provisions with regard to such things as length of the SFS threshold.
And we appreciate the addition of section 202(d) which provides that the
statute shall not be constructed as to diminish the authority of the Director of
USICA. Nevertheless we are still concerned with provisions in the bill that
suggest a different intention, specifically the requirement that the foreign affairs
agencies achieve "maximum compatibility". We agree that a degree of compati-
bility must exist to facilitate personnel exchanges and to allow for reasonable
personnel administration abroad, but the adjective "maximum" transforms
"compatibility" into "uniformity".
Our concern on this issue can only be appreciated in the context of the his-
torical relationship between the Department and USICA. The employees of
USICA have over the years been subject to various disruptions and manipula-
tions, the FAS program being a timely example, most of which originated with
the Department of State and were transmitted to, or imposed on, that agency.
The failure of the Department to try to bring order to the resulting chaos in
recent years is in sharp contrast to the efforts made in USICA by both manage-
ment and the union. While we have agreed and still agree that personnel reform
is necessary in USICA we believe that reforms are most likely to occur and to
be constructive when the independence of USICA in personnel matters is assured
and the agency is freed from the necessity of accommodating the special per-
sonnel and political problems current in the Department of State.
The issue of the integrity of the news, educational and cultural programs of
USICA was a major concern of Congressman Fascell's Subcommittee in discus-
sions on the reorganization plan which established USICA. We hope that this
concern will manifest itself again in careful scrutiny of this legislation to insure
that neither the agency, the Director, nor the FSIO corps is compromised. To this
end we propose amending section 1203 to delete the word "maximum" modify-
ing the word "compatibility". The same deletion would be made in section 2403.
We would also ask for assurances that section 204 is intended to give no author-
ity to the Director General over the personnel system of USICA. In addition we
request amendment of section 441(d) to provide that the determination of nom-
inations for performance pay for meritorious or distingiushed service be made
separately within each agency, not by an interagency board whose recommenda-
tions will ultimately be reviewed by the Secretary. The Director of USICA should
be able to submit nominations to the President, or if considered appropriate, to
a third party, such as OPM, without going through the Secretary of State. The
present formulation represents. in our view, a first step toward a single, inter-
agency SFS, a creation we would strongly oppose since it would undermine not
only the autonomy of the agency, but also of the separate FSIO corps.
A. Broadcasting mission
The Voice of America continues to be beset with certain failure, some resulting
from its basic philosophy of international communication, others from its treat-
ment of personnel. In a sense, these are interrelated.
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One of its principal failures in the last year is in the area of foreign language
broadcasting. During the entire period of the Iranian crisis, while the Soviet
Union was intensifying its broadcasts, the Voice of America was silent. Not one
word, not one minute was broadcast in Farsi, the majority language in Iran,
during this entire period. An analogous situation appears to exist in the broad-
casts to Yugoslavia-these are in "Serbo-Croat", angering the indigenous Croatian
population of more than six million who wish to have broadcasts in "Croatian"
while retaining broadcasts in Serbian to the Serb population in Yugoslavia.
These unhappy situations result from a policy which many past Administra-
tions, apparently with the acquiescence of Congress, have pursued in the foreign
language broadcast area, in the apparent belief that one can ignore those people
who are friends. Apparently, so far as the Voice of America goes, the assumption
is that the people we regard as friends today should listen to our broadcasts in
English, not their own language.
For this reason, it appears, there were no broadcasts to Iran, just as there
are today no broadcasts to Japan. Our union urges the Congress to review this
policy, particularly since the many crises which we confront show that even
our friends do not always understand our foreign policies. There is just as much
concern, we have learned, in Japan about our positions in Ethiopia, Somalia,
Eritrea, South Africa, Cambodia as there is in these countries which are directly
affected. We have even heard that part of the anti-American attitude of many
Iranians was that our policies toward Iran itself were never understood, simply
because there was no way most Iranians could hear our own version of events,
either in the newscasts or in the "VOA Commentaries" to which I referred
under the heading of VOA Achievements.
I submit to your consideration the advisability of Congress raising with the
Administration, as an oversight function, the introduction of a policy of broad-
casting to our "friends", while they are still "friends" and not merely broad-
casting to areas where we believe we do not have "friends". In fact, such a tacit
policy as we now have suggests to many people that our primary goal is prop-
aganda and not communication, propaganda in competition with that of the
Soviet Union rather than a means of positive communication from our nation
to all peoples of the world.
B. Broadcasting personnel policies
A second failure of the Voice of America relates to its personnel practices in
foreign language broadcasting.
Last February we raised this issue with the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee while commenting on a section ,of the 1980-1981 USICA authorization
bill which amended the statutory authority of the Voice of America to hire
non-citizens to work in the United States.
The problem which this is supposed to solve is the underclassification of alien
VOA broadcasters who are performing at the same level as other broadcasters
but who cannot receive a grade higher than GS-11. This is the highest grade
for an alien "translator" into a "colloquial" language under current practices.
Whereas the Agency can claim that it has been inhibited in giving higher
grades to alien employees because of the insistence of the Civil Service Com-
mission that-as aliens-they cannot be graded higher than GS-11, even though
the broadcasters are writing, not merely translating the script, the Agency has
been derelict in the classification of American national foreign language broad-
casters.
The English language broadcasters are normally classified on the basis of
the general civil service standards. Many are at GS-12 and can aspire to reach
even GS-14 level. Yet, the foreign language broadcasters who are often just as
important to the purposes of the VOA mission as the English language broad-
casters do not receive the same classifications.
This situation has led to morale problems among foreign language broad-
casters-citizen and alien-who, for example, believe they are being denied
the basic constitutional right of equal pay for equal work. AFGE has discussed
this continuing inequity with a succession of VOA administrations since 1968,
who have shown a surprising lack of concern, considering VOA's reliance on
these broadcasters to reach the vast majority of its overseas audience.
C. Fringe benefits for its employees
The Agency has not made an effort to obtain proper retirement benefits for a
certain group of its employees.
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This year we raised the issue again in connection with 1980-1981 USICA
authorization bill, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee concluded that
it preferred to consider it in connection with the personnel bill which is now
here as the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979. This subject has a direct
impact on the morale of certain USICA employees. Admittedly, it is a matter
of past mistakes in seeking to make covert what has, since then, had to be
made overt.
A second reason for bringing this issue of equity is that it will cost less than
the Administration and Congress are willing to pay in retirement credits for
future employees of the "fictive" but overt Institute. Certainly, in principle,
there is not much to differentiate these "fictions" in law designed to achieve
certain diplomatic goals, made necessary by diplomatic fictions.
The number of these RFE/RL employees who are still alive are employed
in the Federal Service cannot exceed fifty. Of these the greatest number, perhaps
thirty, are now with the Voice of America, which has benefitted greatly by
having had them available as trained RFE/RL broadcasters and not having
had to give them any training. Thus, VOA and the American taxpayer have
benefitted far more already than the costs of the additional annuities.
We estimate that the additional cost, at the very most, of these additional
annuities would reach approximately $100,000, annually, provided that the pur-
ported beneficiaries first paid into the retirement fund an amount of approxi-
mately $125,000 to purchase these benefits. Considering the interest rates now
being earned, considering that the beneficiaries would be receiving back in
the first three years of retirement only their own contributions, considering
the age of these prospective beneficiaries, our estimate is that the actual retire-
ment cost over the life of these employees may be not more than $500,000 at the
most and might be as little as $250,000.
All these Federal employees for whom we petition equity have in common
prior service with those radio operations established and funded by the Fed-
eral Government in the late 1940s and early 1950s-and still funded today by
the Federal Government under Congressional authorizations and appropria-
tions. All formerly served with either the American Forces Network, Europe;
Radio Free Europe ; or Radio Liberty (one former employee of RL also served at
Radio Free Asia).
As you know, the American Forces Network is operated worldwide by the
Department of Defense. Employees of the Network in Asia were paid by the
Department from Appropriated funds. They were thus Federal employees, and
were entitled to Civil Service retirement credit. Employees of the American
Forces Network, Europe, however, were paid by the Department from Non-Ap-
propriated Funds. In these circumstances they were not considered to be Fed-
eral employees, and were deprived of Civil Service retirement credit. We be-
lieve that simple justice and equity call for eliminating this discrimination for
former employees of AFN (E) who are now in the Federal Government, so that
they may obtain Civil Service retirement credit for the time served with AFN (E).
The Free Europe organization and Radio Liberty were, of course, funded by
the Central Intelligence Agency for the first two decades of their existence. The
CIA's funding was clandestine. This arrangement sought to achieve two things :
to allow listeners to believe that the Radios were not United States Govern-
ment agencies, and to allow the United States Government to say things which
could not then be attributed to it. In the circumstances of the day, these were
no doubt legitimate aims. It seems to us not to be legitimate, however, to per-
petuate those aims today by penalizing those who served them loyally in other
circumstances in the past.
Denial of Civil Service retirement benefits to employees of RFE and RL was
part and parcel of the clandestine funding arrangements (although, curiously
enough, those benefits were not denied to CIA officers, or to U.S. Foreign Service
Officers, assigned to the Radios). Because the Radios were originally viewed as
short-term operations, undertaken in what appeared to be imminent danger of
war (broadcasts were in fact inaugurated during the Korean War), a pension
plan and retirement benefits for the Radios' employees were not even contem-
plated by the Radios' managements and clandestine funders until a whole decade
of operations had passed. Even then they were only accepted by those who di-
rected the Radios on the initiative of the unions involved.
Notwithstanding the absence of retirement benefits, no effort was made by
the Radios' managements to compensate employees for their disadvantaged posi-
tion in comparison to others serving the Federal Government. In fact, the union
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initiative which eventually led to establishment of a retirement system began
in 1957 with a concerted-and unsuccessful-effort to raise the level of staff
pay to that prevailing at the Voice of America (with no hope of achieving levels
equal to comparable private industry). for example, set salary
In 1957 the first union contract at Radio Free Europe,
scales and provided for a 15 percent general increase in salaries, either through
those salary scales or a general increase, whichever was greater. The new RFE
salary scales gave a Deputy Desk Chief $115 a week, and a Senior Editor $100
a week. The comparable Voice of America figures at that time (GS-12 and GS-
11 or GS-10) were $145 and $122 or $113 a week. The 1958 RFE contract
brought increases of $5 per week in Radio salaries-still below the comparable
VOA pay.
The union negotiators of that time tell us that the Radio managements, in the
discussions which eventually produced a retirement plan, never once suggested
that introduction of such a system should involve some reduction in pay or benefits
originally given to the Radios' staffs to compensate for the lack of retirement
benefits. Indeed, in view of the facts of staff compensation, any such claim would
have been untenable.
When the Radios finally agreed in 1959 to the introduction of pension plans,
they imposed a requirement of 10 years' service as a full-scale employee for the
vesting of an employee's rights in the plans. This meant that those who left the
Radios with less than 10 years' service and entered other Federal employment
lost those years so far as credit for their retirement is concerned. As for former
employees of the Radios whose service equalled or exceeded 10 years (there are
about 10 such persons in Federal employ) their Radio pensions-available to
them at age 65, or in reduced amounts at ages down to 60-would be based on their
lower earnings when much younger, and on salary scales a fraction of today's.
They would thus represent a considerable loss compared to giving them full credit
for all of their Federal service.
Depending on their category of employment, some persons now Federal em-
ployees made contributions to the United States Social Security System while at
the Radios. Others did not. (In the case of a number of former Radio employees
now in Federal employ, they achieved American citizenship, and with it the
possibility of Federal employment, including VOA, while serving the Radios
abroad only thanks to an Act of Congress which specifically permitted them to
count time serving the Radios abroad towards the residence requirement for
naturalization.) Even among those who made Social Security contributions, there
are those whose contributions were below the minimum required for vesting in
the Social Security System. That time and their contributions are now lost to
them.
There are approximately 50 current employees of the Federal Government who
are affected by the inequities we are addressing. Some 44 are now working at
the Voice of America. The other half-dozen are employed by such other Federal
agencies as the ICA, the Trust Territories of the Pacific, the Board for Interna-
tional Broadcasting, the Department of Energy, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and the General Accounting Office.
On behalf of these 50 current employees of the Federal Government we would
therefore like to solicit your support for an amendment to Title 5, United States
Code. It concerns Chapter 83-Retirement, particularly Section 8332, Creditable
service.
We are offering some suggested rewording of that Section which would specifi-
cally forbid use of prior service with the Government-funded Radios for benefits
under any other retirement system if used for credit under the Federal retirement
system. This means that Federal employees who credit their service with the
Radios for Federal retirement benefits cannot also credit that same time for
benefits from the Radios' retirement plans or from the Social Security System.
But there are other concerns, besides the possibility of "double dipping," which
need to be addressed. One is to the effect that however equitable or just this
remedy might be, it risks creating a "precedent" that would open the floodgates
to a deluge of demands on the Federal retirement system by great numbers of
persons formerly associated in one way or another with CIA clandestine opera-
tions, and therefore these particular inequities should be continued.
We believe that the Congress of the United States, which sets no precedents
if it does not wish to do so, is not as powerless to remedy inequities as this
viewpoint suggests.
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Beyond that, the suggestion of "precedent" merits closer examination : there
are specific features of the Government-funded Radios that make them entirely
unique-and inapplicable as "precedents".
For one, although RFE and RL were "clandestinely funded" by the CIA, they
were not "clandestine organizations." Their functions, indeed, the organizations
themselves, were openly and publicly espoused by Presidents of the United States,
and by leading members of the Legislative and Executive Branches, of both
parties. This cannot be said of any CIA "clandestine operations."
This unique status of the Government-funded Radios made it possible for their
clandestine funders to avoid-indeed, it precluded-the special incentives, awards,
or bonuses characteristic of CIA "clandestine operations." The employees of the
Radios were thus not only disadvantaged in comparison to those in other regular
Federal service-in terms of their employment-but, precisely because of the
unique status of the Radios, they (except for the CIA agents in their midst) were
deprived as well of any possible special benefits that might accompany CIA
employment.
For another, and even more importantly, the existence of RFE and RL, after
more than 20 years of clandestine funding, was openly and fully debated by the
United States Congress in 1971-72. The Congress decided, by a very large major-
ity, that the two Radios should be continued in the national interest, and that
they should be funded by the regular and open Congressional procedures. There
is no other case of the Congress mandating the continued existence and assuming
the funding of activities previously funded by the CIA.
These unique features of the Radios, of course, refer to the past. To a past of
ambiguities and improvisations. Our appeal to you concerns-indeed, is specifi-
cally limited to-leftovers of that past. For this reason our suggested rewording
of Section 8332, Title 5, United States Code, confines the remedy we seek to those
presently affected, i.e., to persons employed by the Federal Government only as
of the date of enactment of the amendment.
We therefore, hope that this Committee, as a matter of justice and equity, will
see nt to grant the remedy sought, which it appears can be achieved most simply
by amending Section 8332 of Title 5, United States Code, as follows :
Retirement Credit for Service with Government-Funded Radios
SEC. -. (a) Section 8332 (b) of title 5, United States Code, is amended-
(1) by striking out "and" at the end of paragraph (8) ;
(2) by striking out the period at the end of paragraph (9) and inserting
in lieu thereof a semicolon and "and";
(3 by inserting immediately after paragraph (9) the following:
"(10) subject to section 8334(c) and 8339(i) of this title, service (other
than service performed before July 1, 1946) in any full-time capacity for at
least 130 working days a year, beginning after December 1, 1945, to the Na-
tional Committee for a Free Europe, Free Europe Committee, Incorporated,
Free Europe, Incorporated, Radio Liberation Committee, Radio Liberty
Committee, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Incorporated, RFE/RL, In-
corporated, Radio Free Asia, the Asia Foundation, the American Forces
Network, Europe, or any part thereof, if such service is not credited for bene-
fits under any other retirement system."; and
(4) by inserting between the second and third sentences immediately fol-
lowing paragraph (1), as added by paragraph (3) of this subsection, the fol-
lowing : "The Office of Personnel Management shall accept the certification of
the Executive Director of the Board for International Broadcasting concern-
ing service for the purpose of this subchapter of the type described in para-
graph (10).".
(b) The provisions of subsection (a) shall apply only with respect to an em-
ployee, as defined in section 8311 (1) of title 5, United States Code, who is so
employed on the date of enactment of this Act.
RETIREMENT EQUITY FOR BINATIONAL CENTER EMPLOYEES
The Binational Center Guarantee problem arose in the United States Informa-
tion Agency many years ago, but it has had its solution frustrated repeatedly and
obsessively by the Secretary of State who administers the Foreign Service Re-
tirement Fund and has been unsympathetic to the needs of USIA (now ICA) em-
ployees. Even though USIA management agreed that these employees were en-
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titled to retirement credit, the State Department, supported by the Civil Service
Commission, objected and suit was brought by our union. On May 2, 1974, Federal
Judge Albert Bryant ruled in Taylor v. Hampton (Civil Action #1178-72) that
Binational Center grantees met all the criteria of Federal government employ-
ment and were entitled to credit under the Federal retirement system. The court
order read as follows :
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
CIVIL ACTION 1178-72
WAYNE W. TAYLOR, PLAINTIFF
ROBERT HAMPTON, ET AL., DEFENDANT
ORDER
Upon consideration of Defendant's motion for summary judgment and Plain-
tiff's cross motion for summary judgment, and of the entire record herein, and it
appearing to the Court that there is no genuine issue as to any. material fact in-
volved in this cause, and that Plaintiff is entitled to judgment herein as a matter
of law, it is by the Court this second day of May, 1974.
Ordered : That the Defendant's motion for summary judgment be denied and
Plaintiff's cross motion for summary judgment be granted.
(Signed) WILLIAM B. BRYANT,
Judge.
All those persons' who were still in Federal employment were automatically
able to benefit from this ruling. The Secretary of State interpreted the court order
as applying. only to personnel still on the rolls of the Foreign Service at the State
Department and the United States Information Agency. For this reason the case
was again taken to the court, on September 11, 1975, at which point the Secretary
yielded to our view that the retirement credit also applied to all those who had
been already retired either under Civil Service or Foreign Service and their annui-
ties were adjusted retroactively.
This brought equity to almost all the persons except those who had been hired
directly as BiNational Center grantees and were not ever shown, for that reason,
as employees of the Foreign Service. Of these there are only a few still alive and
equity would suggest that they also be entitled to credit under the foreign service
retirement system. The Secretary of State, however, still interprets the court rul-
ing to their prejudice despite the obvious fact, now conceded by ICA, that they
were foreign service employees.
An example of the problem is the case of Paul Johnson of Newport, Rhode
Island. Because of an administrative USIA ruling against "career" employment
after age 60, he was given further "limited indefinite FSS" status which excluded
him from the retirement system even though he had previously served nearly six
years as a BiNational Center grantee. Had that BiNational grantee been recog-
nized, he would have been considered to be in the career foreign service and his
subsequent FSS appointment computed as part of the foreign service retirement
system. Thus he was doubly denied retirement credit.
For the reasons given, I request equity for those very few persons, such as Paul
Johnson, and petition you to incorporate the following text in the legislation you
are drafting.
"Any person who was appointed as a BiNational Center Grantee and who has
completed at least five years satisfactory service in that capacity or any other
appointment under the Foreign Service Act of 1946, as amended, shall become a
participant in the Foreign Service Retirement and Disability System and shall
make an appropriate contribution to the Foreign Service Retirement and Disabil-
ity Fund in accordance with the provisions of Section 652 of the Foreign Service
Act of 1946, as amended."
ICA SPOUSES ABROAD
We favor the employment of spouses abroad in all non-career positions. How-
ever, complaints have been received that the spouses of senior Foreign Service
Officers, who write the efficiency reports of more junior Foreign Service personnel
officers at posts abroad, manage to get much better positions much faster than
the spouses of Foreign Service Information Officers. Our complaint here appears
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to parallel the general complaint of many women that the spouses of influential
senior government officials somehow manage to get higher level grades in Wash-
ington than an equally competent wife of a private citizen or a lower ranking
civil servant. We would wish to have equal affirmative outreach action among
wives, especially since those married to lower ranking males probably need the
money more than the spouses of senior officers. This complaint, by the way, is
even more true of the spouses of personnel employed by the Agency for Interna-
tional Development.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS AT THE AGENCY FOB INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The most immediate problem at the Agency for International Development
relates to the developments initiated by the so-called Obey Amendment. Spe-
cifically, they relate to the "Regulations" submitted to the Congress on May 1,
1979.
As we indicated in our testimony of May 2, 1979, before the House Subcom-
mittee on the Civil Service we consider the Regulations both illegal and mis-
chievous. Rather than repeating the arguments which we employed there, we
should like your permission to attach them as Annex III to this statement and
to summarize some but expatiate on those issues which treat with equity, par-
ticularly for women, minorities and all other persons now in the clerical or
technical positions who are qualified to assume professional and administratve
roles when opportunities arise.
THE MISCHIEF OF THE PROPOSED REGULATIONS
Mr. Nooter, the Acting Administrator of the Agency for International Devel-
opment, concedes that the Regulations will not result in a single additional
position becoming available abroad. These positions are set by ceilings imposed
by the Secretary of State and unless the Congress mandates by legislation more
positions abroad, the Regulations will not achieve the alleged legislative pur-
pose of the so-called Obey Amendment. Consequently, the Regulations fail to
achieve the very purpose for which they were intended by Representative Obey.
That in itself is mischievous behaviour-pretending to be able to achieve some-
thing which will not be possible.
The second mischief is worse. Up till now, the Agency for International De-
velopment had been spared one of the acute problems that have plagued the
Department of State and the International Communication Agency-this is the
pretense to a higher personnel status arising from an established exclusive
right to certain so-called "prestige" jobs in Washington. Unlike the Department
of State and the International Communication Agency, AID had formerly as-
signed foreign service personnel and civil service personnel to any and every
position as it became available and claimed that it sought the best qualified
person to fill that position. Because foreign service experience is an important,
sometimes the most important, factor in filling certain positions, many of these
have been regularly assigned to members of the foreign service. However, in
the event some civil service person was more qualified than the available foreign
service personnel, the position could be filled immediately by that person in the
civil service.
The advantage of retaining such a system for the future is even more important
than it was in the past. As more and more younger women, particularly persons
of black (African) and Hispanic background, have become educated in foreign
policy matters, they discovered that they still had to enter at the clerical and
technical level but at least they could aspire to professional and administrative
functions. The past system could have facilitated such an upward mobility if
applied consistently because the best qualified person, irrespective of foreign or
domestic service, could apply for assignment. The new regulations frustrate
this because these "prestige" professional jobs would be designated as foreign
service and thereby be segregated, and only persons who served abroad would
he entitled to fill them. This places a premium on, and gives an inordinate ad-
vantage to, past foreign service. Some person, let us say a white male, who
entered the AID foreign service ten years ago and served mostly in Afghanistan
or Pakistan, would know that certain prestige positions were automatically
restricted to him and other white males in the AID foreign service. even in areas
not related to his own experience. The most educated married black woman, in
the General Schedule, who had a graduate degree in West African affairs and
who is much more qualified than anyone else in AID, would have difficulty in
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obtaining an assignment, for example, on the Ghana desk, because that position
had been "reserved" to the foreign service. She might have to remain a typist
or secretary or computer operator all her career at the Agency.
We believe this will lead to a caste system, institutionalized supposedly to
send more people abroad, but actually serving only as an additional barrier
to equal opportunity and affirmative action at home.
We oppose these regulations as being mischievous; we oppose them because
we think they are illegal and are not in compliance with several Constitutional
and statutory requirements. I shall not repeat those arguments since they appear
in our statement of May 2, 1979 which we requested to introduce into the Record
as an annex.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I should like to reiterate our most sincere appreciation for your invitation
to testify before this joint hearing of your Committees and to assure you of the
fullest cooperation of our two locals and our national headquarters in your
enterprise.
I would like to take the opportunity to stress that good foreign policy deci-
sions depend not only on good personnel but on proper institutional structures.
I share the view of many persons, including the members of the so-called Murphy
Commission, that these are now in disarray and that it is important to relate
the operations of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Labor
and Treasury more closely to those of the recognized foreign affairs agencies,
AID, ICA and the State Department.
Equally important is the need to assure that the new foreign service legisla-
tion you are considering at this time not only improves the operations of AID,
ICA and the State Department but makes possible your other attempts to co-
ordinate these operations with those of the government as a whole in Washington,
D.C. Largely for this reason, I have urged that all those aspects of personnel
policy not directly related to service abroad be identical with the provisions
in the U.S. Code for the civil service at home. In my opinion, the most important
such new statutory provisions as those incorporated in the Civil Service Reform
Act of 1978, particularly the Federal Labor Relations Authority, The Federal
Impasses Panel and the Merit Systems Protection Board with its Special Counsel.
In conclusion, I thank you once again.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you, very much. We appreciate your testi-
mony and since I am chairing, I will wait with my questions and start
off with Congressman Fascell.
. Mr. FASCELL. I have so many questions I am not sure where I want
to start. I have to digest them all. Perhaps I will know more about
what I want to ask when you get through.
Mr. KoCZAK. Would you prefer we go on?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You have a statement you want to make on title
VII, is that correct?
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes. Perhaps that would be helpful. It concerns labor-
management relations.
It is evident to us that Foreign Service should be placed under the
provisions of title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The
labor-management title in the proposed bill does not grant full col-
lective bargaining to members of the Foreign Service.
We believe in universality of protection for all employees. As we
hope you will conclude from our report on the origin of the foreign
affairs specialist program, the only assurance that such bizarre under-
takings are prevented is to have labor-management relaitions governed
by the same principles as those which apply everywhere else where
there are American employees of the Federal Government.
The Foreign Service was originally excluded from the provisions of
title VII of the civil service reform bill, in part because of the al-
leged jurisdiction problems between the Post Office and Civil Service
and Foreign Affairs Committees. Such problems do not confront us to-
day because these committees have agreed to hold joint hearings.
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Further, as seen with the implementing legislation for the Panama
Canal Treaties, where coverage of title VII was extended to employees
of the Panama Canal Commission employees who are not American
citizens, it is feasible to extend coverage to those categories previously
not incorporated.
We favor the incorporation of Foreign Service personnel under the
very fine provisions of title VII by an amendment to that act deleting
the following language under exclusions :
(iv) an officer or employee in the Foreign Service of the United States em-
ployed in the Department of State, the Agency for International Development or
the International Communication Agency.
We believe this would be the most judicious and appropriate man-
ner to proceed. We oppose the provisions of the administration pro-
posal for labor-management relations because it is redundant and
would deprive Foreign Service personnel of the protections and the
procedures established by the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and
the Federal Service Impasses Panel.
You will hear, with justification, of two possible problems which
concern members of our union and of the American Foreign Service
Association. One concerns the issue of worldwide representation; the
other concerns so-called supervisors being in the unit.
Both problems arise from the ambiguities in the rank-in-person and
worldwide availability requirements of Foreign Service personnel.
Consequently, these need to be perceived in their fundamental rela-
tionship to the subject of appropriate unit and supervisor.
Under the rank-in-person system an individual is not tied to any
position in the Foreign Service but is reassigned with regularity. Even
at the highest rank, a position does not involve per se any supervisory
function, since even the highest ranking officer cannot rank anybody
in relation to any other officer. Only the selection panels can do that.
Nor is there an exercise of any other of the managerial functions in
hiring, assigning, and dismissing Foreign Service personnel. These
are all handled by centralized or collegial bodies.
The problems of management, and the abuses of management, con-
sequently reside in the anonymities of centralized administration and
collegial bodies. These are the real managers of the Foreign Service.
It is igainst their anonymous action that even the most senior Foreign
Service officers and personnel need the protection of the worldwide
unit in which all Foreign Service personnel are members.
The Congress no doubt has in mind the protection of the clerical and
technical and professional personnel from the abuse of power by senior
career personnel. The question can be asked : How can a secretary or
typist speak up in a meeting of the union representing foreign service
personnel if the supervisor or manager can sit by right in the same
meeting? Does this not reduce labor-management relations to manage-
ment manipulation?
We have not found this to be the case. Common interests, particu-
larly in working conditions overseas, create a collegiality among For-
eign Service employees. Conflicts can be resolved by resort to the
Grievance Board.
Nevertheless, we want to face up to the fact there is a peculiarity,
an anomaly, here and there are potential dangers of a supervisor sit-
ting in judgment at the same union meetings as persons being managed
or supervised.
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It is precisely for that very reason of potential danger and conflict
of interests that we wish to have the entire Foreign Service placed un-
der the jurisdiction of subpart F, Labor-Management and Employee
Relations of title V of the United States Code, to assure the fullest
measure of supervision over the activities of both management and
labor in the Foreign Service takes place by the Federal Labor Rela-
tions Authority.
We can think of no better way to assure that abuses are avoided and
that collective bargaining rights are at least equivalent, and preferably
identical, with those of other employees of the Federal Government
who are not in the Foreign Service.
Having said this, we believe that it is necessary to permit the reten-
tion of the present worldwide units and the present membership in the
units and leave all other matters to the jurisdiction of the Federal
Labor Relations Authority.
For the reasons we have given and the weaknesses which we per-
ceive, we oppose totally the enactment of legislation such as that pro-
posed by the administration as chapter 10 of its draft bill, entitled
"Labor-Management Relations." We oppose that because it would
freeze present inequities and not extend the protections we think are
necessary to all persons which are afforded by the Federal Labor
Relations Authority, whose decisions, precedents and procedures
should be applicable to all members of the Foreign Service and, if
conflicts of interest arise in the units, the Authority can note them
with care and remedy them.
Such a separate Foreign Service labor relations system would be
both administratively redundant and, we fear, not serve the best
interests of either management or labor.
That is our formal statement on labor-management relations. We do
comment in our annex No.1 on some of the aspects of it as well?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Did you want to present that? Did you want to
make a further presentation?
Mr. KOCZAK. Perhaps we will jump to Senior Foreign Service which
is the other matter that gives us concern.
This feature of the proposed legislation is clearly patterned after
title IV of the Civil Service Reform Act establishing the Senior
Executive Service. The opportunity to create this executive corps was
obviously a major incentive for developing that. reform bill. But there
are significant areas where the SFS proposal departs from the SES
model, and in our view these departures are to the detriment of the
Foreign Service.
Passage of the SFS provisions as now written would, in our view,
have unfortunate consequences for not only the Service, but also for
the conduct of the Nation's foreign policy. Among USICA Foreign
Service officers there is overwhelming concern with the possibility that
the SFS as now designed will permit wholesale politicization of the
Foreign Service and discourage discussion, dissent, and professional
development.
This concern should not be difficult to understand. The combination
of variable time-in-class and the so-called limited extension could be
used to eliminate an entire class of officers not satisfying a director's
political bent, within a period as short as 2 or 3 years, by establishing
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time-in-class at 1 or 2 years and permitting no, or few, limited exten-
sions.
While no one accuses the drafters of the bill with such intentions,
there have been in the past, and there will be again, administrators who
are capable of such action. Even absent the most extreme situation, the
lack of certainty about one's status is going to foster caution, not
courage.
We are not opposed to making advancement and retention more
directly dependent on performance. But the proposed SFS goes far
beyond what is either necessary or advisable.
Let me make specific reference to those aspects of the SFS which are
without parallel in the SES and which we find objectionable.
First, the absence of a "parachute clause" for those removed from
the Senior Foreign Service after expiration of time-in-class or non-
renewal of a limited extension. The SES system provides that a mem-
ber who is removed for reasons of performance, not misconduct or
malfeasance, is entitled to placement in a non-SES position at the GS-
15 level or above.
This safeguard is a natural companion to the stringent provisions
regarding retention and removal. In our view no less should be pro-
vided in the SFS. As in the civil service, an employee in the Foreign
Service may be fully capable of work at the FS-1 yet be deemed un-
suitable for the SFS, possibly for reasons not in the least reflecting on
the employee's abilities.
As the bill is now written, an officer who is particularly able could
reach, enter and be dropped from the SFS before the age of 50 while
still retaining skills and knowledge important to the agency.
The disincentive for achievement for the employee is as obvious as
the disadvantage to the agency. We, therefore, propose that section 641
be amended to allow officers dropped from the SFS by expiration of
time-in-class or nonrenewal of limited extension to retreat to the FS-1
level for the time remaining, if any, in the time-in-class period for class
1, counting time previously served in class 1 and in the SFS. This could
be achieved by adding a new section (c) to section 641 as follows :
(c) Members of the Senior Foreign Service who are not granted a limited
extension or whose limited extension is not renewed shall be entitled to return to
the FS-1 level and assigned to a non-SFS position for the period, if any, remain-
ing to be served in class 1 under applicable time-in-class rules for class 1. In
determining the time remaining, periods previously served in class 1 and periods
served in the Senior Foreign Service shall be subtracted from the time-in-class
period.
Second, the "limited extension" : This concept has no equivalent in
the SES. It is a mechanism which will give enormous power to the
agency head in retention decisions for those in the SFS and discretion
to exercise that power without regard to performance factors.
It is true that decisions granting and renewing extensions will be
made upon selection board recommendations, but the agency head will
determine the number of extensions to be given and could allow none or
very few. In combination with the authority to set and change time-in-
class limits, it will, therefore, be possible for the agency head to keep
SFS members in a constant state of uncertainty about their future.
At that point, dissent and creativity will be a luxury few will be able
to afford. For a profession in which performance is not easily quanti-
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fled, where service abroad has hazards, where one is removed from
centers of power and is not able to have access to explain the positions
and the arguments pro and con, face to face with the people who are
involved, and where personal integrity and courage are vital to the
national interest, we think such measures are particularly ill-advised.
It is our view that the provision in section 641 for "limited exten-
sions" be deleted, that a minimum time-in-class period be established
for the SFS.
Third, section 602(b) : The Department indicates in its sectional
analysis that the objective of the SFS is to create a corps with rigorous
entry, promotion and retention standards based on performance, but
provides in this section that consideration should be given to the need
for attrition.
The necessity and purpose of this provision are not immediately
clear but the provision appears to conflict with the merit principles
incorporated into the bill. Under merit principles, employees are to be
retained on the basis of the adequacy of their performance.
When agency managements determine the number of promotion
opportunities and selections into the SFS, they will surely consider
this factor without a legislative mandate to do so. In our view, this
section should be deleted.
With the modifications, we suggest the Senior Foreign Service
would still give the agencies the flexibility desired but without the
sacrifice of legitimate interests of both employees and the public.
The stringent measures sought in the bill have not been justified to
our satisfaction. For USICA, the Director himself made the case, in
a March 26 letter to Mr. Read in which he reported :
Attrition and shorter promotion lists at USICA in the last two years have
brought us a long way toward removing the surplus of senior officers. * * *
Today, the number of officers at the class 1-3 levels and the number of jobs
classified at those ranks are at parity and the historic imbalance has been
resolved. I'm convinced, therefore, that current legislative authority and internal
administrative practices are sufficient to deal with any potential future problems
of senior officer impactment.
Without modification, the SFS proposal will result in damage to
the integrity of the Foreign Service and worsen rather than improve
the personnel system.
We have one last section or two sections on pay comparability and
on retirement, if I may read those now to you.
One of the most critical problems, associated with proper classifi-
cation, in the area of personnel practices, is appropriate pay. The
administration draft is silent on its specific character and we con-
sider this one of the many serious weaknesses in the bill.
Our union endorses fully the principle that Foreign Service per-
sonnel be assured of proper classification, equivalent to those provided
civil service employees. We feel that, just as civil service employees
now enjoy overtime pay, Foreign Service employees should be en-
titled to the same provisions.
Consequently, we request that you include in your legislation the
provision that both base and premium pay for Foreign Service per-
sonnel shall be determined in the same manner as pay for civil service
employees by proper "linkage" established by the Federal Pay Agent
and Federal Employees Pay Council.
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The simplest way to achieve this would be to restate that the pro-
visions of title V, United States Code, which incorporate the authority
of the Pay Agent and Pay Council, apply to the Foreign Service.
However, even if this were done, Foreign Service employees would
not have pay comparability because civil service employees are not
subject to worldwide service, to the attendant disruptions in their as-
signments, to the stresses in their personal and family lives.
For that reason, we propose that Foreign Service personnel be paid,
at all times, a tax-exempt allowance to compensate them for this as-
pect of their governmental service. I should like to suggest the fol
lowing language as a model or outline for your consideration.
The compensation of all Foreign Service personnel shall be the same as the
comparable grade in the General Schedule excepting that Foreign Service per-
sonnel shall be paid a further tax-exempt allowance of 15 percent additional
because of their availability to serve world-wide ; provided that, in no case shall
this allowance be less than $2,000 and not more than $5,000. This allowance shall
be in addition to any other allowance which may be authorized.
The minimum and maximum allowances I have suggested are to
assure that clerical and other personnel in the lower grades are ade-
quately compensated and that personnel in the higher grades, particu-
larly in the Foreign Senior Executive Service, if it is established, do
not benefit disproportionately from other members of the Foreign
Service.
Our last major proposal concerns retirement. We say as follows :
There is a myth that "selection out" and early mandatory retirement
at age 60 is a feature of the Foreign Service alone. It exists in the
civil service, as well, for special categories, particularly the officers of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, other law enforcement groups,
firefighters, and air traffic controllers, and employees of the Alaska
Railroad.
In fact, for most of them, mandatory retirement is at a lower age
than 60. I request permission to include as attachment II hereto ex-
tracts from title V, sections 8335 and 8336 on mandatory separation
and immediate retirement. But there are two major differences.
First, these persons can continue to stay in the civil service in other
functions besides their original specialties. Second, their annuities
are computed, for the first 20 years of service at 2.5 percent and not
the 2 percent offered Foreign Service personnel. To qualify for this
larger annuity, they contribute 7.5 percent to their retirement annuity
instead of 7 percent.
I should like to suggest that all Foreign Service personnel required
to serve worldwide be brought under provisions similar to those af-
forded these categories I mentioned.
Under my proposal these computation formulas would be portable,
so that any separated Foreign Service officer would be eligible for
the higher 2.5-percent rate for all actual Foreign Service.
In summary, the following retirement provision would apply to all
persons in the Foreign Service : First 20 years computed at 2.25 per-
cent, remainder at 2 percent, with voluntary retirement at any age
after 5 years of service abroad.
Those are the issues attendant on Foreign Service generally. The
other issues are those located in the Agency for International Devel-
opment and I do not know whether you wish to discuss general pro-
visions first before we go to the special problems of the agencies.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. I thank you.
I think you have done the overview and now our problem is to figure
out where we begin to ask questions. Let me throw one out to begin. Is
there any reason for a separate Foreign Service? A lot of your testi-
mony is that you would like things similar to the civil service. Why not
just have a worldwide civil service?
Mr. KOCZAK. I think that proposal certainly has not been examined
and has a great deal of merit. I am not sure how the individual mem-
bers of the Foreign Service would respond because they are rather
concerned about status and one of the nonmonetary rewards to human
beings is to have a status which distinguishes and identifies them from
other human beings.
If I may comment, I was a Foreign Service officer when the so-
called Wristonization program cane in and those Foreign Service of-
ficers who entered by the regular process were outraged. All kinds
of people who did not pass the same examination which they had
passed could come aboard and I would say that there was a great deal
of friction and tension as to whether they did in fact match the same
standards.
There is one plausible if not conclusive argument for a Foreign Serv-
ice. which is not totally separate. I do want to present, while not en-
dorsing, that argument to you. We ourselves raised it in an oblique
manner when we said that other Federal agencies are sending people
abroad who we believe are eroding the Foreign Service generally of
those functions which the ambassador must carry out.
Even if one were to assume hypothetically that all members of the
Foreign Service should be concurrently in the civil service, I think
you still would want to have the'same kind of formal relationship
preserved for those who go abroad, if they are already in the civil
service, that one has in the military, that is, the active duty versus
the reserve officers.
One of the problems of people at the Department of the Treasury,
Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce who go abroad
is that they have no introduction or apprenticeship at the junior level
to cover Foreign Service disciplines. They do not pass the minimum
standards which they should be aware. They do not have the same
kinds of introduction in their prepartion for going abroad that the
people in AID and ICA and State who go abroad have.
So, when you ask, is there any need for a separate Foreign Service,
I have interpreted that question to mean totally separate, totally segre-
gated as the military service is separate from civil service. I do think
there is a need and there will be a continuing need to see to it that
Foreign Service civilian people who go abroad at least have a char-
acteristic that may be called "amphibian," that they are able to live a
disciplined collegial life abroad and to concert their operations abroad
with other people abroad, whether in the information agency, the dip-
lomatic and consular services, even with people in CIA who are abroad
under covert programs.
So, if one asks, should there be no distinction whatsoever, should
there be no qualifying preconditions for Foreign Service, I would
think that is impossible and impracticable. Perhaps that is the way,
if I were trying to respond, I would try to reformulate your question.
On the other hand, we are of the opinion that because they are asked
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to accept greater disciplines, Foreign Service officers should have not
only all the rights and all facilities available to civil service people,
but more.
Thus, for AFGE the question is : Does that require a totally separate
Foreign Service or does it require instead some sort of organizational
distinctiveness whereby people who go abroad clearly accept the fact
that employment abroad will be different; they will be asked to per-
form things not required in the domestic service; they will be avail-
able for worldwide duty; and they will comprehend there would be
direct reciprocity between disciplined duty and personal prerequisites.
The "total separation" which has been sought at times in the past
has led to all kinds of manipulations unrelated to the needs of the
Foreign Service, even unrelated to needs of the government itself,
which is the issue I think you are trying to address, if I may be al-
lowed to interpret your question even more.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Fascell.
Mr. FASCELL. I want to pursue that. I am not sure, so you will have to
take my interrogation here in a rather broad and general sense as to
where you are going. I gather you are not for this bill at all.
Mr. KOCZAH. We are not for the bill at all for the reasons we have
given.
Mr. FASCELL. Therefore, the suggestion that you made for amend-
ments are just merely what, gratuitous comment on the bill since you
are not for the bill?
Mr. KOCZAK. No, sir. We have been told thebill is going to emerge as
law so to the extent the bill in some form will be law, we know it will
govern Foreign Service life. We are not the Congress of the United
Mates and consequently if the bill is enacted we would hope that our
amendments would be incorporated into them.
Mr. FASCELL. I think that is important to have on the record. You
are not just throwing the amendments into the air.
Mr. MICA. Will the gentleman yield?
Would you be supportive if all your amendments were adopted?
Mr. KOCZAK. We would.
Mr. MICA. You would support it?
Mr KoczAK. I think we would support the bill.
Mr. FASCELL. The other thing I would see developing which I do
not particularly want to get into-I can understand. why nobody has
fooled with this since 1946-is that nobody wants to take you guys on
and then you have a jurisdictional fight. You talk about jurisdictional
fights in Congress, it is peanuts to what I see happening out there.
What you suggest is a larger, more effective role for AFGE.
Mr. KoczAK. No, sir, we did not suggest that. We suggested
Mr. FASCELL. I know you have not suggested a smaller, less effec-
tive role for AFGE.
Mr. KOCZAK. What we have suggested-and after all, we can lose
the representation at the International Communication Agency-we
have suggested a larger role for all Foreign Service employees, a role
which would be equivalent to the role all civil service employees have
whether they are operating through the instrumentalities that are set
out for the special council, for the Merit Protection Board or for the
union. I
It is not necessarily AFGE. We may lose the representation.
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Mr. FASCELL. That was not meant to be critical. I have to translate
what you are telling me all the time, because you are speaking from
years of background and experience that I do not have. I am not sure
exactly what it is you are telling me, but I hope to be able to catch
up with it shortly.
Let me see again. I gather you are for some kind of distinction for
the Foreign Service-in terms of pay, for example-because of the
necessity for worldwide service. Am I correct so far?
Mr. KoczAK. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. The other is a distinction for the Foreign Service in
terms of retirement. Am I correct on that?
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. So those would be distinguishing features from other
employees who would not be Foreign Service employees.
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. And therefore, you are not saying that it should be a
unified civil service system?
Mr. KOCZAK. No, sir. We are not saving that. We are saying that just
as the air traffic controllers, who are within the civil service, have spe-
cial considerations for them so Foreign Service personnel in their dis-
tinctive service should have special considerations.
Mr. FASCELL. Hazardous duty recognition in terms of pay allow-
ances, retirement?
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes; and examination. We have no objection to
examination.
Mr. FASCELL. In terms of meeting a different criteria for employ-
ment, those would be distinguishing benchmarks. Do you have any
problems with giving them a title instead of a number?
Mr. KoczAE. No, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, we are on the same railroad track. Let's start at
the top. Should the Ambassador be classified by a title or number?
Mr. KOCZAK. No, sir; he is appointed by the President.
Mr. FASCELL. So, all constitutional officers would be exempt. Now
regarding nonconstitutional officers-where does that start?
Mr. KOCZAK. I believe at the present time they are called career
ambassadors and then career ministers and eight grades, and then
you have what has now become, in practice but not in law, defunct,
what is called the Foreign Service Staff and Staff Officer Corps. It has
been rendered defunct by administrative fiat.
Mr. FASCELL. Start at the top.
Mr. KoczAK. Foreign Service 1 through 8 and Reserve Unlimited
groups and Reserves which are parallel.
Mr. FASCELL. Are they to the side or below?
Mr. KOCZAK. To the side. Career ambassadors, career minister 1
to 8, and then on the side there are the Foreign Service Reserve un-
limited, on the side. The main difference is their names are not sub-
mitted for confirmation to the Senate.
Mr. FASCELL. In terms of the labor-management relationships you
were talking about, in that scale of people that you just advised me,
would everybody be in or everybody out or somebody be in and some-
body out?
Mr. KOCZAK. In terms of what we described the people would be
in the units as they are now. Overseas the main distinction is that all
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so-called supervisors and managers except for the very top person in
the post, is in a unit. All these employees are, of course, career
personnel.
Mr. FASCELL. I am having a hard time following this because I do
not have the knowledge of the operation; but this supervisor, as I un-
derstand it, does not have a designated job description.
Mr. KOCZAK. There is a position abroad which clearly states the
person supervises, usually, foreign personnel.
Mr. FASCELL. Are you talking about administrative people?
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. We are not referring to the hierarchy of the State
Department as such.
Mr. KoczAK. No, sir. A Foreign Service officer does not have a super-
visory function, for example, by that designation of class 1 officer-he
is not a supervisor per se.
Mr. FASCELL. I thought I understood you to say that. I just wanted
to be sure what people you were -talking about, to be sure I had that
clear in my mind. So, would you repeat again for me the labor-man-
agement relationships in the ideal situation, as you have recom-
mended them, applied to career ambassador, career minister, and
those eight levels, the two groups on the side, and all the foreign
nationals.
Mr. KOCZAK. I should say that these are administrative titles, career
ambassador, career minister, and have nothing to do with their func-
tion at any post.
Now, obviously there would be the problem of who is the very top
person at any single post, consulate or Embassy abroad.
Mr. FASCELL. Wouldn't that be determined by his actual designa-
tion, not by
Mr. KOOZAK. It would be determined by his assignment. The chief of
the mission, for example, would be excluded automatically, no matter
what his rank. It could be FSO-8.
Mr. FASCELL. By virtue of his assignment to that particular super-
visory responsibility.
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes. But when he came back home he would cease to be
a supervisor and might be just a professional or technical person and
would be again in the unit. That would be the functional distinction
that distinguishes between class rank and the function one is
performing.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Are you familiar with the Hay Associates study?
Mr. KOCZAK. Only in the sense that we have heard of it.
Mr. LEACH. Do you support it?
Mr. KOCZAK. I have not read it sufficiently. We received a copy last
riday so we could not interpret it as we were busy writing testimony.
Mr. LEACH. Do you go on the premise Foreign Service people are
verpaid or underpaid?
Mr. KOCZAK. We think they are underpaid.
Mr. LEACH. Do you think a way of searching for comparability
ould be to equate Foreign Service salaries to civil service rather than
ping outside civil service?
Mr. KOCZAK. There are many ways of determining comparability.
e have tried to build into a structure a fair base. Now, compensation
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abroad has all kinds of other allowances. The problem, if I understand
the Hay Associate study, is they tried to study what people get in
Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, which is absurd because the conditions in
Saudi Arabia and Brazil are so exceptional that the only way you can
solve that is by tax exempt allowances, not by pay.
We said for that kind of situation if it is $100,000 one has to give
to secretaries to go to Saudi Arabia because of the value of the dollar,
give them $100,000 in allowances. That should not be considered base
pay and it should be tax exempt.
The Treasury Department wants to tax these allowances, which we
think is an appalling situation because it would- mean the Foreign
Service personnel would have to pay taxes on allowances from base
pay, turn their whole base salary over just to pay the income tax on the
allowances. We distinguish between allowances and base pay.
Mr. LEACH. Are you familiar with the AFSA recommendation, for
equating Foreign Service pay to GS scales?
Mr. KOCZAB. We have seen several proposals. I prepared at one
time a relationship between the two and we believe that should have
been brought before the pay council on which I was serving. But, just
as with the pay for the doctors in the Department of Medicine and
Surgery, the pay agent never addressed the issue. I was an alternate
on the pay council and repeatedly we asked the pay agent, when are
you going to raise the subject properly so we can make some accom-
modation, and they never did.
So, the fact is that the Secretary of State and, at that time, the
Chairman of the Civil Service Commission were derelict in not doing
their duty in presenting proposals to the members of the President's
pay agent. Thus, there was no way for us to make a determination on
a more proper linkage. We represent Foreign Service personnel at
ICA so that subject is just as close to us as it is to AFSA.
Mr. LEACH. I am referring to AFSA testimony today.
Mr. KOCZAK. I have not seen their testimony today.
Mr. LEACH. It is my understanding you oppose mandatory retire-
ment; is that correct?
Mr. KoCZAE. We also oppose mandatory retirement, even in a case
of the air traffic controllers. As I indicated, our wishes and our views
have not been accepted by Congress. We are saying if there is manda-
tory retirement, we want 2.5 percent for Foreign Service people just
as for air traffic controllers for the first 20 years of service.
Mr. LEACH. So, you would not favor it at a higher level, 62 or 65 or
67.
Mr. KoozAK. Our view is just as there are Congressmen and Ambas-
sadors who are 70 years old, if they are qualified they should be per-
mitted to stay. There is no reason why civil servants should not be able
to stay longer. If they are not qualified, there is a way to retire them.
You can simply say, "We do not have a position you can fill
adequately."
Mandatory selection-out for everybody over age 60, we think that is
discrimination. There are a lot of people 60 years old, Foreign Service
officers, who are as good as people 59 years old and who are Foreign
Service officers and there are people 59 years old just as good as 18
18-year-olds. That is our argument.
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If they cannot perform and cannot go abroad or there are too many
of them, as there have been-the Department of State has said you can
be 21 years in grade FSO-1-we say that is an administrative issue. If
they do not have the courage to select-out officers largely because they
themselves are also at FSO-1, there is a real problem that confronts all
of us-administrative courage.
That is what is lacking at the Department of State and Foreign
Service, at the top, and you do not have to go through this farce of get-
ting rid of all people at age 60 when many are still highly qualified. I
think the whole country begins to oppose that. That is the reason we
oppose it, because we think it is illogical.
Mr. LEACa. Do you support either the maintenance of the current
Foreign Service officer system or the proposed Foreign Service devel-
opment officer system?
Mr. KoCZAK. We favor the information officer system because al-
though we believe there are really very fundamental minimal stand-
ards that everybody should pass in some form or other and they should
be qualified, we think the heads of these different agencies should be
able to administer their own people.
There is no way to consolidate these agencies rationally today,
especially with the experience the Department of State has had with
the cumbersome "cone system"-we dread what will happen to the
efficiency of the information service, for example, if they got tangled
up in the system developed at the State Department.
Mr. LEACH. I happen to agree entirely with that.
Mr. IRELAND. Thank you. During your conversation about the Senior
Executive Service you alluded to the difficulty in judging perform-
ance and I got the impression that perhaps it was impossible to judge
some of this performance.
I am not sure I would agree with that, but a moment ago in response
to what Congressman Leach was saying you referred to administra-
tive courage and that you would not have to worry so much about
the age 60 or 62 or 63 if there were administrative courage.
Can you tell me in what way you think, if a man did have adminis-
trative courage, that under our existing system he could pull this off ?
It seems to me that is the very heart of the question, that administra-
tive courage or not, we are so tangled up in vague references to per-
formance and unwillingness to go by judgment of performance that
even the guy with administrative courage either is going to end up in
the soup himself because his judgment is challenged or whatnot.
How is all that compatible in your mind?
Mr. KOCZAK. Secretary Vance was kind enough to invite us to meet
with him and we discussed this problem of what should be the specific
role of the Senior Foreign Service. It was our view that basically the
concept of the senior executive service was to try to establish another
level of managerial function, political in the broad sense, not in the
partisan sense, of people available to any administration with a tech-
nical expertise. They could bring them in and take them out at will,
taking into account that very often the most expert person cannot get
along with his immediate political boss.
Personality and ideology may be more important in this wider
managerial role than expertise. If that is the purpose of the senior
executive service and if that is the purpose of the Senior foreign
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Service, it is a kind of specialized person-to-person relationship where
the Secretary of State and his closest associates would have technical
experts at hand who are compatible in ideology and personality and
"style" with them.
If that is what is intended-and it has a certain amount of ration-
ale-the person who was brought on top should be able to parachute
back to the regular career because this senior executive-service is a
sort of extra career function. You take on a function that is personal
to the Secretary of State or the Secretary of the Treasury and there is
much more of your personality as a part of it, than there is of your
expertise.
Mr. FASCELL. Will the gentleman yield? If I understand what you
are saying, it is as if under one administration somebody comes out
of the ranks and gets up into that Senior Service and then in the next
administration he is kicked out. You are suggesting he goes back to
the level where he started from?
Mr. KOOZAK. That is correct. So that would mean his expertise would
be preserved and the person would be more prepared to run the risk. If
you know you are not going to have your career throat slit entirely by
disagreeing on an energy proposal but that you might be able to sur-
vive at a lower previous level until maybe some other person comes in
who is going to be your new political boss and you go up to SES
again-if I may give one example.
Mr. IRELAND. Let's get more into administrative courage, whether
the guy goes up and parachutes back or never goes up. Let's talk about
below Senior Executive level and your comment that administrative
courage would solve the thing of opting out at 60 or 65.
It does not seem to me in our current setup that anybody with
administrative courage that wants to move somebody to the happy
hunting grounds because he is not getting the job done-the guy with
administrative courage does not have a chance in the world of getting
the job done.
Mr. KoezAK. Then what kind of executive do we have ? I have to
say we should not have to look to the people who are the typists and the
clerks to be the salvation of the foreign policy of the United States if
the people at the top cannot do the job.
Mr. IRELAND. If they get up there and they have been "Peter prin-
cipled" by moving up to a grade they cannot keep up with, I do not
care who has the administrative courage, it does not seem they will
get the job done when a guy is promoted beyond his capabilities.
Mr. KOCZAK. You may be correct. I cannot comment on that. I am
saying that the Secretary of State is derelict in that situation if he can-
not see to it-he has the responsibility-it is not the union's responsi-
bility. All our responsibility is to see to it whoever is removed is not
removed for partisan reasons.
The second problem you are raising is an issue of personality
and structure and management.
Mr. IRELAND. I thought that is what you were referring to when you
used the phrase "administrative courage." Administrative courage
could eliminate-and I am sure this was what you were saying-much
of the need for this legislative administrative early retirement.
Now, what I am anxious to hear you say is why you believe that
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administrative courage is absent, is it because all our administrators
have no courage?
Mr. KoCZAK. I would not say that. We are coming now, I think,
to the point that Representative Schroeder raised. I think that may be
the real reason she raised it.
Let us take the situation of the Foreign Service officers class 1. They
have put in all kinds of service at hazardous positions and let's say
there are 15 percent more of them than the service can use at the mo-
ment. No one can really know who of these is in the bottom 15 percent.
There is no way of distinguishing between them, at least on paper.
They are all at the top.
It is the same as if you were to say all Nobel prize winners are to
suffer selection-out, you are going to see that one takes away 15 per-
cent of the Nobel prize awards from them as if these were a limited
quantity. That is the problem the administrators face. They now say
one of the ways to solve this problem is that, because we cannot decide
rationally, we will let the throw of the dice decide and the game of the
throw of the dice is "age 60, out you go."
The problem now really is that there is no way for them to say you
go out as FSO-1 and be* a civil servant, GS-18, because of the total
present severance between Foreign Service and civil service. I found
rather plausible what Mrs. Schroeder was saying, perhaps we should
not sever the two services altogether, but merely remove him from For-
eign Service, you might find courage appear there, because it is not
"courage" but "compassion" that gets in the way of these cases.
If you serve abroad and talk to the people, it is hard to know which
is the lamb or the goat, who are going to be mostly lambs, who is going
to be sacrificed as goats. So, if there were this fallback, there might be
more rational "courage." I think there is a great deal of merit to what
Representative Schroeder suggests that we do a disservice to the Gov-
ernment of the United States and the Foreign Service by this great
separation, the segregation of Foreign Service from civil service.
Mr. IRELAND. Madam Chairman, could I ask one more question
along that same line? I want to make sure I understand what your
opinion is of the separation of two different entities, Foreign Service
and civil service.
I think you referred to the status that went along with us and I
think perception is reality there. I am sure there is some status but
in my district I do not think anybody would want that status. So, it
is in the peoples' minds and I agree with you.
Do I understand that in your opinion the ideal would be one over-
all civil service arrangement and then, be they in the State Depart-
ment or the Communication Department or the CIA or Commerce,
if they did go overseas regardless of from which department they
originated, they would be subject to one examination.
They would be subject, on the other hand, to hazard pay, retire-
ment, and everything based on going overseas.
Mr. KoczAi. And discipline.
Mr. IRELAND. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
In the civil service 10 percent of the senior executives can be non-
career. In this proposal 5 percent of the senior Foreign Service can
be. Do you see any reason for the distinction?
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Mr. KOCZAK. No, sir. As a matter of fact we have real concerns
about the Foreign Service Senior Executive Service.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Do you support legislation to provide that former
spouses of Foreign Service officers receive part of the annuity after
the officer dies if the marriage lasted for 10 years?
Mr. KOCZAK. Yes.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Do you have any comment on the proper relation-
ship between the State Department and ICA and whether this legis-
lation provides for an appropriate relationship between the two?
Mr. KoCZAK. We fear this legislation would disturb what is today
an appropriate relationship. We have been very much concerned that
ultimately this legislation is intended to put within the jurisdiction
of the State Department Foreign Service the same rule as the Office
of Personnel Management has, and even more the right to assign
people there on the Foreign Affairs agencies.
We think that would be very harmful, similar to the cone system
that developed within the Foreign Service of the Department of State.
So, we do wish to have the heads of these agencies able to operate in
terms of missions assigned to them by Congress and not in terms of
their being diffused by somehow being intermingled with something
else.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Harris.
Mr. HARRIS. Thank you. I am sorry for coming in late. I am familiar
with your testimony and your position. I guess I want to ask you a
simplistic question here, if I may. Is there any reason to have a sepa-
rate Foreign Service?
Mr. KOCZAK. We earlier went through this question and I said I
believe and it is the consensus of our locals that the term "separate"
has to be analyzed because it can be ambiguous. If one means separate
the way it is now, there is no reason why it has to be as it is now. If it is
meant, should we realize there are in fact, in real life, fundamental
distinctions between service abroad, disciplines abroad, the fact that
small groups of Americans live in a community that perhaps a Foreign
Service officer who is a class 1 officer, may have to do the work of a
Foreign Service officer class 8 so the classification systems do not work
or class 8 officer on occasion has to do the work of a Foreign Service
class 1.
We think unless the Congress and unless we ourselves take into
account that there is this very important distinction we will not under-
stand the meaning of separate. When I responded earlier I said I think
there is perhaps too much of a segregation and that all Foreign Serv-
ice personnel should have the fundamental rights of the civil service,
perhaps they should have a dual classification. They should have some
relationship to the civil service; perhaps job rights at home in other
agencies, potential rights when they come back.
If they are selected out, they have some access to civil service classi-
fication and that is not very different than what happens now for per-
sons who have not been Federal employees. If you are in private enter-
prise, if you work outside, you can now go to the Office of Personnel
Management, formerly the Civil Service Commission, and ask to be
classified on the basis of your past private enterprise record; then you
are entitled to get a job in the government at some general schedule
grade, say for example GS-11.
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If you are in the Foreign Service and the equivalent of your job is
GS-111, we think those people should be able to have jobs in the Govern-
ment at GS-11. Simply because they are no longer in Lithuania, for
example, where we had an embassy at one time and there is no longer
a need for a Lithuanian officer, there is no reason why they should not
have a job in some other branch of Government while retaining the
retirement rights they acquired in the Foreign Service.
Mr. HARRIS. How would this affect the Agriculture attache, Com-
merce attache and so forth?
Mr. KoczAK. What we are facing is a total fragmentation because
the Foreign Service is increasingly segregated from civil service and
these different departments find they have needs abroad which are not
being accommodated. Since the boundary between Foreign Service and
civil service is kept impermeable, there is no way these civil service
agencies can move in and out and preserve jurisdiction of any sort over
their own people. They lose them or they move back and it is only
through retreat rights.
We think there is a very real need for the Congress to find a relation-
ship, a fundamental relationship between the traditional Foreign
Service and everybody going abroad from Agriculture, Commerce,
Energy, Treasury, CIA. So, we fundamentally agree that persons in
service abroad should be recognized as having positions more dan-
gerous, more hazardous, more tense, more onerous and there should
be supplements paid on top, a reward paid on top of what civil service
employees get.
Mr. HARRIS. It seems to me what you are saying is all professional
employees of our Government should be civil service and that those
Government employees that at times do service abroad should be sub-
ject to a layer of recompense, of requirements, what have you, that
would apply to them.
Mr. KOCZAK. And discipline. They have to understand when they
are abroad they are under the governance of the Ambassador. They
are in the Foreign Service. I think it is not soley from our point of
view to get more pay.
You enter a new official family relationship and you must realize you
must get along with everybody abroad in the special environment that
s abroad. This is what we meant about the amphibious role of a per-
son who moves from civil service to Foreign Service abroad because life
:here is different and it is getting harder.
When they come back, when they are in the United States, they
hould have all the rights of the civil service available to them, even
though their formal distinct status remains Foreign Service.
Mr. HARRIS. Let me ask you two general questions to help my think-
ng. I had a little experience with regard to this. There is a thing out
here now where a fellow may have or a person may have served over-
eas for 20 years but he or she really is not a Foreign Service officer.
And it always seemed vague to me, does this proposal help correct that
ituation in any way?
Mr. KOCZAK. No, sir. You are speaking of the issue of personal pres-
ige and status.
Mr. HARRIS. Sure.
Mr. KOCZAK. It is supposed to be one of the rewards and has become
ne of the curses of service abroad because there is so much preoccupa-
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tion with whether you have a diplomatic passport or another passport.
It has contributed to the decline of our policies abroad.
Mr. HARRIS. You say this proposal does not help it.
Mr. KoczAK. I do not see how it solves that problem.
Mr. HARRIS. The other element, so often, for example around the
turn of the century, I had knowledge with regard to agricultural at-
taches. So often it occurred to me that we got a special advantage in
having people in our Embassy that had very specialized, what I call,
substantive knowledge as distinguished from being professional rep-
resentatives and that there was an advantage that could be had by hav-
ing people move from, for example, very substantive type of occupa-
tions in the Department of Agriculture and other agencies into a
foreign post and back again.
And that attache just did not have to be an attache all the time. He
could spend 3 or 4 years as an attache, 3 or 4 years doing domestic work
and 3 or 4 years as an attache with a great deal of advantage.
Does this proposal help to facilitate that type of movement?
Mr. KOCZAK. Do you mean the administration's proposal?
Mr. HARRIS. Yes.
Mr. KoczAK. We do not perceive that. As a matter of fact that is
what worries us. At the outset of the statement Mr. Blaylock and the
two locals both agree there is a real threat to the integrity and the effi-
ciency of the foreign policy of the United States by the failure to pro-
vide some way in which those various Departments, Agriculture, Com-
merce, Energy, et cetera, are able to integrate their people into the
whole life of the missions abroad, and they should be able, and very
often they are the only ones available to carry out the foreign policy of
the United States.
Maybe the most senior and most valuable person is an agricultural
attache and is the most qualified person politically at the moment there,
under circumstances such as we have now in Cambodia and Vietnam or
even Iran. That is one of the points we make in our testimony, that the
time has come to see the relationship to the Foreign Service of the civil
service personnel in all the departments of Washington who go abroad
and their collective relationship both to each other and to the Foreign
Service abroad and to the Ambassadors abroad.
Mr. HARRIS. I tend to agree with that observation. I have seen, for
example, in some countries, the agricultural attache becoming an ex-
tremely valuable person or right hand of the Ambassador because his
or her knowledge of current science, of current technology, of current
real life activities in the agricultural field gave the people in those
foreign countries a reason to talk to him, to curry his friendship, to
really utilize his or her knowledge.
Mr. KOCZAK. I think there is no question that very often, not in-
frequently, but very often the people who have substantive relation-
ships and who are open and are in a sense at least initially removed
from the specific programs, are able to develop and be accepted and
then able to feed it at least the intelligence that they are able to acquire.
Not necessarily the decisionmaking but the intelligence they gather
because they are not identified with one or the other current policies so
formally. They should not make a decision contrary to the decision
made by the Government of the United States but they should be avail-
able for information and intelligence and they should be utilized.
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And I gather the point you are making is that there are occasions
which this attache should not be withdrawn from the mission if it turns
out there is a possibility the ambassador has special reliance on that
attache. You are saying there should be some relationship between the
,civil service and the Foreign Service, between the Secretary of Agri-
culture and the Secretary of State, so that that person is allowed to
stay there in the best interests of the United States and be rewarded
for staying there.
Mr. HARRIS. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have many further questions. I think what we
might do is offer to keep the record open and have people submit ques-
tions for the record. I just wanted to ask one brief one. Do you have a
collective bargaining agreement between the ICA and AFGE that
Will expire on June 30 of 1981?
Mr. KOCZAK. May I have the President of ICA respond?
Mr. ABE HARRIS. No.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What is going to happen?
Mr. ABE HARRIS. The agreement was open ended. Just as Mr. Koczak
explained, 1981 was purely the date where you could convert the GS
voluntarily and basically at that time USIA, when this agreement was
made, could live with the fact it would take 15 years to 20 years to
phase out this FAS program whereas now apparently State Depart-
ent has continued this program up to about 6 months ago, I believe,
when they stopped hiring people. AMSA wants to terminate very
quickly.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So you have a real contract problem.
Mr. ABE HARRIS. We think the fundamental issue, if the State De-
partment does not like a labor management agreement that USIA
ind local 1812 concluded, should they come to Congress and ask them
lo rewrite that agreement?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Let me briefly ask all of you, if we were to adopt
title VII of Civil Service, would you permit Foreign Service em-
ployees and other employees of the American Government overseas to
picket U.S. Embassies if there is some problem?
Mr. ABE HARRIS. Informational picketing is allowed in this country
~nd I think the Teachers Union has picketed some bases overseas.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I do not believe they picketed an embassy.
Mr. ABE HARRIS. They picketed the bases where they were working.
Mr. KoCZAK. May I inquire, what is the picketing about which you
were asking?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. As I say, we have to deal with this as a portion of
he issue when we look at title VII negotiating rights. The question
~s what do we do about pickets at embassies abroad?
Mr. KOCZAK. I think a question like that would not depend on our
ishes. This is the reason why we did want to have it under the
ederal Labor Relations Authority so that an issue like that could
e resolved in universal terms and not ad hoc. It probably would need
,o be determined by Congress in the first instance. What we are asking
ou is how -you plan to permit it, if you do, and what body, if not
he Federal Labor Relations Authority, acting on universal principles
ould administer it. There are more civilians working for military
nstallations abroad. Do you wish to permit them to picket? If so,
n what issues?
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122
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is right but you also told us before that of
your expertise in dealing with employees. In other words, you also
support separation of the Foreign Service and higher pay for Foreign
Service and for the little better retirement. My question is then : How
do the people in the civil service that you represent feel about that?
Those are your areas of expertise that I feel we need to get from you.
What do you feel about picketing abroad? What do you feel about
those issues?
Mr. KOCZAK. I think we should have local 1534 people respond also.
I wonder whether we might not respond to you in writing to separate
the different kinds of picketing that are involved. Where does the
picketing take place? Obviously you are going to have staff type
issue picketing and other picketing the basic purpose of which is polit-
ical-they do not like the foreign policy that is made by the Govern-
ment of the United States.
Then you go into a very serious issue. Let me, if I may, narrate for
you problems which our union confronted in the past-perhaps it will
be helpful. During the Vietnam war some of our locals wanted to picket
under the AFGE symbol against the further participation by the Gov-
ernment, by the United States in the Vietnam war.
Our president at that time, Mr. Griner, objected to that, noting they
were free to picket under any other organization. There is nothing to
stop them from being against the Vietnam war but there was no deci-
sion, there was no resolution by our convention on that issue and they
were not free, therefore, to put out AFGE signs and say, "We are
picketing as AFGE members." It had nothing to do with labor rela-
tions, management relations and he did not permit the picketing but
expelled the locals involved.
To the extent it has to do with labor management relations and to the
extent there was a breakdown in all communication with the United
States-I cannot imagine it-but I cannot foresee how people would go
out on the street automatically and begin picketing because they hap-
pen to disagree with some personnel policy.
And the second problem, if I may continue, is that the Ambassador
is not the person who is the one they are picketing against. Their con-
tract is with the agency, not with the Ambassador.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. He is a Presidential appointee. He is a symbol.
Mr. KoCZA$. My point is, if you are picketing you are picketing.
For example, if they picket against HEW, HEW may have a contract
with our local but it is not the Ambassador who has a contract with
us. Unless they are picketing on some personal action, in the light of
the situation it is the agency with which we have the contract. We do
not have the contract with the Ambassador. You have the contract
with the agency.
It may be we want to picket ICA back here for what is happening,
let's say, in England. We may want to do that, but I do not see how
the Ambassador out there is the. person who is the contractor, and I do
not see how the members out there have written a contract.
It would be Mr. Harris or Mr. Cope who would have to authorize
the picketing; otherwise I think we would have a question as to the
relationship of the local itself to its own officers and to the rest of the
body. That is why we want to clarify and respond to you in writing.
But I do want to say our contract is not with the Ambassador.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have about two pages of simple questions like
this, but I think I will submit them for the record because we have a
whole group of people waiting to testify and they have a lot to say
too. So, unless there are further questions, let me thank you and we will
proceed and I will look forward to being your pen pal.
We welcome you.
Would you introduce the people with you and we will put your full
testimony into the record and you can summarize or whatever.
STATEMENT OF LARS HYDLE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREIGN
SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Mr. HYDr,E. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. My name
is Lars Hydle. I am the president of the American Foreign Service
Association. I am accompanied by, at my right and your left, legal
counsel Catherine Waelder; Joseph McBride, a member of the out-
going and incoming governing boards. We just had an election, and
he has chaired a task force on one of the aspects of this bill.
To my immediate left, Ken Rogers, outgoing vice president and
chairman of the standing committee on Department of State affairs
which worked so hard to prepare our testimony, and Bob Stern who
coordinated our task forces and is a member of the outgoing governing
board and of the State standing committee.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. May I ask a question at this point? Does that mean
the position presented today is that of the new governing board or the
old governing board position or of both?
Mr. HYDLE. I cover that briefly in our statement. The new govern-
ing board has not yet taken office. It will take office July 15 and there-
fore it cannot at this moment take a formal position. The actions that
we have taken do ranresent in our judgment the consensus of the
Foreign Service and I have with me-though we could not get him at
the front table-the president-elect, new president-elect who will
comment before we finish our formal testimony.
Madam Chairwoman and members of the subcommittees, for more
than half a century the American Foreign Service Association has
been the professional representative of the career Foreign Service,
active duty as well as retired. Since 1973, AFSA has been the ex-
clusive representative of the Foreign Service in the Department of
State and the Agency for International Development that represents
9,000 employees in State and about 2,000 in AID so we do represent
the great bulk of the active duty career Foreign Service people in our
Government.
We seek to represent the interests of the Foreign Service, but also
to encourage use of the Foreign Service as a high-performance, flexi-
ble instrument of the national interest and of foreign policy.
The Foreign Service Act of 1979 is in part an attempt by manage-
ment to respond to the concerns AFSA has raised in the past with
management and the Congress about various problems of the Foreign
Service. We have been discussing since December with management
various proposals and successive drafts of this bill. And we have met
people at the highest level of the Department of State and AID.
We also have kept our membership, worldwide and in Washington,
informed of the turn of events so far as we could, given the farflung
nature of our Foreign Service on whom the Sun never sets.
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We received hundreds of telegrams, we have organized task forces
and the election that I referred to which has just been completed pro-
vided fuller occasion for debate of all the elements of this legislation.
Servicewide consensus has developed in favor of a number of key
elements reflected in the bill, either initially or as a result of our
efforts: Reestablishment of the up-and-out principle; reaffirmation
of the distinction between the Foreign Service and civil service;
legislatively based labor-management relations; reduction or elimina-
tion of excessive numbers of Foreign Service personnel categories;
reestablishment in law of the Board of the Foreign Service.
At the same time, a consensus developed in opposition to a number
of elements in the earlier drafts of the bill, many of which have sub-
sequently been removed or modified. Overriding the concern of the
Foreign Service about specific elements of the management proposals
has been our question as to the need to seek comprehensive legisla-
tion. We believed that many of the problems of the Foreign Service
could be addressed through existing authority and selected amend-
ments to the Foreign Service Act of 1946, as amended.
We were not alone in our concern. But despite our urgings and
those of others more senior than we, the Secretary decided to submit
the comprehensive Foreign Service Act of 1979 which is before you.
Our position on the bill is, because of the strongly expressed con-
cern of the career Foreign Service regarding such comprehensive
legislation, AFSA does not today endorse this act. On the other hand,
it does contain some provisions which would help the Foreign
Service deal with its problems. We believe that the most useful service
we can perform today for the Service and the Congress is to provide
a detailed commentary on the bill, identifying provisions we approve
as well as those we seek to change or wish to clarify in the legislative
history.
I would like to discuss some of the principal areas of interest to us:
The uniqueness of the Foreign Service; up-or-out and performance;
pay comparability; international development; the Foreiprn Service
Staff Corps; protection of the career Service against political abuse;
and legislated labor-management relations.
We have submitted what we called our own section-by-section
analysis. It is a comment on everything we thought was worth com-
menting on in the draft bill and the bill's section-by-section analysis.
I estimate it contains about 90 separate points of various character,
some important and some less important, some supporting aspects of
the bill, some critical and some asking for further clarification.
Mr. FASCELL. Without objection. I gather this document is entitled
"American Foreign Service Association Section-by-Section Analysis
of the Bill To Promote the Foreign Policy of the United States by
Strengthening and Improving," et cetera? It is not dated. I guess we
are talking about the same document?
Mr. HYDE. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. It has 31 pages to it?
Mr. HYDE. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Without objection we will make that analysis a part
of the record.
[The material referred to follows:]
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AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Section-by-Section Analysis of the Bill To Promote the Foreign Policy of the
United States by Strengthening and Improving the Foreign Service of the
United States and for Other Purposes
TITLE I-THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT OF 1979
CHAPTER 1-GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 101 (a) (1) (p. 1, line 12)- After "to" insert "advise and * * *"
Comment: This change would reflect the actual role of the career Foreign
Service in giving advice on policy formulation and implementation. See also
Sec. 104(4) below.
Sec. 101 (a) (3) (p. 2, line 4)-Change to read :
"(3) that the members of the Foreign Service should be * * *"
Comment: This would conform more closely with the 1946 Act, which, as we
read it, obligated each individual officer and employee to be representative of
the American people, and to remain truly American rather than becoming too
foreign or cosmopolitan. The legislative history should show that the require-
ment that the Service be "representative" incorporates a requirement to seek
to recruit, hire, and retain the best people from all sections of American society,
specifically including those not currently proportionally represented in the Serv-
ice, but not at the expense of merit principles, such as equal employment
opportunity. See also Sec. 101(b) (2) below.
Sec. 101(b) (2) (p. 2, line 25, to p. 3, line 8)
Comment: The merit system principles in 5 U.S.C. 2301(b) (1) and (2)
already apply to the Foreign Service. This is reaffirmed in Sec. 102(7) and a
number of other places in the bill. The legislative history should make it clear
that equal opportunity is meant regardless of political affiliation, sex, etc. Simi-
larly, the reference to handicapping conditions should not be interpreted to
require hiring of an employee who cannot meet the medical standards for
career availability for worldwide assignment. See also Sec. 101(a) (2) above, and
Sec. 301 (b) and (c) below.
Sec. 101(b) (5) (p. 3, line 21) -After "minimize" insert "and compensate
for***"
Comment: The law should make it clear that where possible, tangible com-
pensation should be provided to members of the Service for the extraordinary
hardship and dangers they suffer.
Sec. 104(4) (p. 8, line 10) -Add new paragraph (4) :
"(4) advise the Secretary with respect to foreign policies which will best
some the interests of the United States."
Comment : See also Sec. 101(a) (1) above.
CHAPTER 2-MANAGEMENT OF THE SERVICE
Sec. 202(b) (p. 9, line 20)-Insert at end:
"information officers, and, with respect to the International Development Co-
operation Agency, be deemed to include references to Foreign Service development
officers."
Comment: In order to enhance compatibility among the foreign affairs agencies
and the status of the international development function, the law should provide
for the establishment of a Foreign Service Development Officer corps in IDCA,
parallel with the FSO corps in State and the FSIO corps in USICA. The specific
categories of Foreign Service personnel who would be so appointed could be
worked out by subsequent regulation. AFSA has frequently testified in favor of
the FSDO concept, most recently on May 2 before the House Post Office and
Civil Service Subcommittee on Employee Ethics and Utilization in connection
with AID'S "unified personnel system" proposal. See also Section 2105 below.
Sec. 206 (pp. 12 to 13)
Comment: We strongly support the re-establishment in law of the Board of the
Foreign Service. We agree with the composition and functions of the Board
described in Sec. 206 and its analysis. We welcome the proviso that a career mem-
ber of the Senior Foreign Service chair the Board, and we believe that a majority
of Board Members should likewise be career Members of the Senior Forign Serv-
ice. Only those domestic agencies with government-wide responsibilities (OPM
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and OMB) or which use the Foreign Service overseas but have none of their own
(Commerce and Labor) should be represented.
To insure that the Board can function as an independent and useful source of
advice to the Secretary and other foreign affairs agency heads, it should have a
staff, like that of the FSLRB in Chapter 10 or the FSGB in Chapter 11, independ-
ent of agency management and responsible only to it. Its career Foreign Service
members should be neither officials of the exclusive employee representative nor
management officials as defined in Sec. 1002(10) (F). It should not only respond
to requests from agency heads for advice on issues arising under the Foreign
Service Actor the Secretary's government-wide authority, but also initiate such
advice. In forming its judgments, it should feel free to hear representatives of
both agency management and the exclusive representative. See also Sees. 1201,
CHAPTER 3-APPOINTMENTS
Sec. 301(b) (p. 13, line 22 to p. 14, line 1)
Comment: The analysis should make clear that the physical examination for a
career Service available for worldwide assignment must be more rigorous than a
physical examination for the Civil Service, and that Foreign Service medical
standards should supersede the requirements of the Rehabilitation Act in cases
of conflict. See also Sec. 101(b) (2) above, and Sec. 301(c) below.
Sec. 30.1 (c) (p. 14, line 2)
Comment: This subsection, which is substantially identical to existing law,
should not be taken to permit or require waivers of high Foreign Service medical
standards. The Board of Examiners should be continued. See also Sec. 101(b) (2)
and Sec. 301(b) above.
Sec. 302(b), (p. 15, lines 21-23) -Delete "and * * * Chapter 4"
Comment: We approve of giving the SFS Member the option of receiving either
the salary of his/her position or his/her SFS class, as well as post differential, if
any. The deletion reflects our opposition to performance pay. See Sec. 441 and Sec.
2201.
Sec. 311 (a) (1) (p. 16, line 17)-Add:
"The President shall provide to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the
Senate, with, each nomination for a chief of mission position, a report on that
nominee's demonstrated competence to perform the duties of chief of mission in
the country in which he or she is to serve."
Comment: This provision will improve the Senate's ability to judge the qualifi-
cations of a nominee, and deter the nominations of inadequately qualified persons.
Sec. 311(a) (3) (p. 16, line 21) -Change to read :
"(3) to the mas hnum practicable extent, career personnel * * *"
Comment: This change parallels the language of Sec. 311(a) (1) with respect to
the qualifications of a chief of mission and reflects the previously expressed sense
of Congress (Sec. 120 (P.L. 94-350 (90 Stat. 829)) that "a greater number of posi-
tions of ambassador should be occup`ed, by career personnel of the Foreign Serv-
ice." The analysis for this paragraph and Sec. 311(b) (1) should emphasize the
importance of considering senior Foreign Service personnel from USICA and
IDCA, as well as State.
See. 311(a) (2) (p. 16) and (b) (2) (pp. 17-18)
Comment: The analysis should emphasize that the term "contribution" should
encompass all forms of assistance to a poliltical campaign, including working in,
providing services (e.g., advertising) to, or raising funds for, as well as a straight
financial contribution to a campaign.
Sec. 321 (p. 18, line 10)-Add:
"excluding those currently serving as Presidential appointees to specific
positions."
Comment: Career SFS Members serving as Chiefs of Missions or Assistant and
Under Secretaries do not thereby lose their career status as career SFS Members,
but non-career appointees to those positions are not counted as SFS Members.
Either the latter group should be counted within the 5 percent, or, most likely,
these Presidential appointee positions and their incumbents should be excluded
from the calculation. The 5 percent is a ceiling, not a minimum, quota, goal, target,
or average.
Sec. 323 (1) (p. 19, line 14) -Change to read :
"the functional needs of the Service which cannot efficiently be filled from
within the Service or, by a limited or temporary appointment; or * * *"
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Comment: This change would protect promotion and assignment opportunities
for the career Service from lateral appointments not justified by the long-term
needs of the Service for functional skills.
Sec. 333 (b) (p. 22, line 2) -Delete "be consistent with * * * and replace with
"not be used to avoid fulfilling * * *" and on line 3, insert "full time" before
"positions".
Comment: This change is consistent with existing law (Sec. 413, P.L. 95-426,
92 Stat. 963) which makes it clear that full-time American career positions should
not be abolished in order to create those positions, sometimes part-time, tempo-
rary, or intermittent (PIT), for family members. Such action of creating PIT
positions reduces promotion and assignment opportunities for current career
members of the Foreign Service. Our proposed change is not intended to impede
increases in job opportunities for family members, or innovations concerning
Sec. 401 (p. 23)
Comment: We approve of this section, which essentially continues existing law.
Since chiefs of mission, pursuant to Sec. 203, have full responsibility for the
direction, coordination, and supervision of all government officials and activities
in the country, their positions should be classified according to the scale of such
activities.
The continued use of different pay levels for chiefs of mission recognizes the
level of performance inherent in the requirements of a specific position.
Sec. 421 (p. 24, line 8) -Delete "nine"
Comment: We are reserving our position on the number of classes in the
Foreign Service schedule, pending further review of the recently completed Con-
gressionally-mandated study of Foreign Service compensation. Apart from that,
we approve of the abolition of currently existing FS/GS pay links, establishment
of the FS-1/GS-15 link, and establishment of a single Foreign Service pay plan
replacing the two overlapping pay plans.
Sec. 441 (pp. 25-28)-Delete.
Comment: While we support pay comparability between the Senior Foreign
Service and the Civil Service, we believe that performance pay as envisaged in
Sec. 441 would not enhance SFS performance, and would be subject to abuses
likely to undermine the integrity of the Service. The principal product of our
senior Service is likely to be advice, and good advice may not be rewarded if it
seems contrary to the current conventional wisdom of an Administration. We
have supported continuation of Chief of Mission classification (Sec. 401) and
full payment of post differential to Chiefs of Mission and other senior personnel
at "hardship" posts (new Sec. 2206), as a tangible recognition of the level of
performance inherent in a position or the circumstances in which it is carried
out. In addition, we believe that Deputy Assistant Secretaries, or their equiva-
lents in AID, should be compensated at Executive Level V, equal to Chief of
'Mission at a Class IV post, but at this time we do not have a specific legislative
proposal. We are examining additional ways to encourage and reward perform-
ance in the senior ranks.
Sec.442 (p.28)
Comment: We support this approach to rewarding performance, especially
meritorious service, below the senior ranks. The analysis should refer to sub-
standard rather than "mediocre" performance.
Sec. 461 (p. 33, lines 13-15)-Delete "that portion * * * appropriate of * s *"
Comment: In the name of equal pay for equal work, an officer temporarily
serving as principal officer should receive the same pay as the officer permanently
or formerly assgined to that position.
Sec. 462 (p. 33, line 19) -Change "Allowances" to "Differential".
Comment: The special allowance, unlike other allowances available to govern-
ment employees overseas, but like the post differential, is taxable, and estab-
lished as a percentage of basic salary. Also unlike overseas allowances, it can be
paid for positions in Washington. Calling it a differential would be more logical.
Sec. 462 (p. 33, lines 19-25)
Comment: This authority was created last year "to mitigate the adverse impact
on FSO's and FSIO's of the loss of premium pay pursuant to Section 412 of the
Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1978. We are seeking the repeal of Sec.
412, but we also have problems with the implementation of the special allowance.
We ask that the legislative history indicate that :
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50 hours per week is "in substantial excess of normal requirements" (the
current regulation refers to 55) ; .
there should be no upper limit imposed on the number of FSO's receiving
special allowances (the current regulation refers to "approximately 100" in
State) ;
FSO's of all ranks should be eligible for the special allowance (FSO-3's,
who will be FS-1's, are not) ;
25 percent of basic salary is a reasonable figure for the special allowance.
(which now ranges from 12 to 18 percent) ;
there should be no positions exempted (special assistants to Presidential
appointees at Executive Level 3 and above are now ineligible to receive the
special allowance) ;
The Department should not take advantage of the inability of FSO's to
receive premium pay by requiring them to work for periods in which work
is not really essential (i.e. to hang around on weekends in care an Assistant
Secretary may want them) or to avoid the need to adjust its workload or
ask for more personnel when necessary to perform the Department's mission.
See also (Sec. 2301 (3) below.
See. 462 (p. 33, line 21) -After "authorized" insert "(a)", and line 25, add :
"or (b) to Foreign Service personnel who are. required by the nature of their
assignments to remain on call on a regular basis for substantial periods of time
outside normal duty hours."
Comment: Many Foreign Service personnel, especially secretaries and com-
inunicators at small posts overseas, are required to remain on "stand-by duty"
or on call for extremely long periods of time, but are not compensated except
and to the extent that they are required during such periods to come in to work
The concept of the special allowance, of a certain percentage of basic salary, is
an appropriate way to compensate personnel for such a substantial loss of free
time.
CHAPTER 5-CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS
Sec. 511(b) (1) (p. 34, line 25) -After "filled" insert "for a specified tour of
duty * * "
Comment: All Foreign Service personnel assignments are for specific tours of
duty, normally for two or three years., Similarly, an assignment of a non-Foreign
Service employee to a Foreign Service, position should be for a specific period
of time after which the assignment could be renewed or a new person assigned
to the position.
Sec. 511(b) (1) (p. 35, line 3) -Insert
"provided, that the number of such personnel shall not exceed the number of
career personnel of the Service assigned pursuant to Sec. 521, and"
Comment: The purpose of this change is to protect assignment and promotion
opportunities of the Foreign Service, which are adversely affected when more
non-Foreign Service people are occupying Foreign Service positions than vice
versa.
Sec. 521(a) (4) (p. 36, line 10) -Add :
"A substantial number of Foreign Service officers shall be assigned for duty
under this paragraph."
Comment: This restores the original concept of the "Pearson Amendment"-
Sec. 572 of the Act of 1946, as amended. The legislative history should indicate
the sense of Congress that most FSO's should have such an assignment once after
commissioning and before promotion to the SFS.
Sec. 521(b)(1) (p. 36, line 12)-Insert "the higher of" before "the salary";
and in line 13. delete "irrespective of" and insert "or".
Comment: This is consistent with existing law, and with the concept of equal
pay for equal work which is part of merit system principles.
Sec. 531 (p. 37)
Comment: We applaud Sec. 531(a) as a reaffirmation of the principle of avail-
ability for worldwide assignment in the Service. We would expect to negotiate
an agreement on any regulation limiting assignments within the U.S., and pro-
cedures for extensions of the eight-year limit.
We also approve of paragraph (b). However, there are some specialties, e.g.,
secretaries and communicators, in which there are not enough positions in
Washington for th`s objective to be met because so many of these positions are
classified as "Civil Service". We urge that the legislative history provide that
there should be enough positions classified Foreign Service in Washington in all
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categories so that at least those career personnel in all categories who want to
serve in Washington for one tour every 15 years will be able to do so.
Sec. 532 (p. 38, line 7) -Insert new Section:
"Section 532 Leave Without Pay.
Consistent with the needs of the Service, the Secretary shall establish regu-
lations which enable career members of the Service to be granted leave with-
out pay."
Comment: Our purpose is to establish that leave without pay is a good thing,
so as to broaden the experience of a career member of the Foreign Service and
therefore his or her usefulness to the Service.
CHAPTER 6-PROMOTION AND RETENTION
Sec. 602 (pp. 39-40)
Comment: We approve of the concept in paragraph (a) that a member of the
Service must request consideration for promotion to the Senior Foreign Service.
We do not object to the "threshold window" concept in the last sentence of
paragraph (a), provided that:
the exclusive representative will be able to negotiate the time-in-class
(TIC) for new FS-1, as well as the number of years in the threshold win-
dow during which one may be considered for promotion ;
in All/IDCA, where retirement for excessive TIC has not been used, the
establishment of a threshold window would have to await the establishment
of a TIC at that level-both on the basis of negotiation with the exclusive
representative;
We strongly support subsection (b). This concept was implicit in the 1946
Act, and explicit in its legislative history. Its reaffirmation in this Act will
strengthen the ability to use discretionary authority in the Act to make sure
that promotion opportunities are reasonably adequate and stable from year to
year, thus reducing the risks of deciding when to request consideration for pro-
motion to the SFS. The exclusive representative must be able to co-determine
the application of this authority from year to year.
We support subsection (c) for the reasons indicated in the section-by-section
analysis.
Sec. 603 (p. 40)
Comment: The legislative history should show that the composition of selection
boards, and the precepts under which they function, should continue to be sub-
ject to negotiation and agreement with the exclusive representative.
Sec. 603(2) (p. 40, line 17)-Delete "performance pay under Section 441(c)"
and insert "within-class salary increases under section 442."
Comment: Sec. 442 noes refer to the role of selection boards ; this appears to
be an oversight in Sec. 603 (2). See also Sec. 441 above.
Sec. 612(a) (p. 41, line 1)-After "Dependability" insert "usefulness", and
lines 2-7 delete everything after "Service" in subsection (b).
Comment: "Usefulness" is from the 1946 Act ; to us it carries an implication
of assignability. However, we would eliminate all the examples of reports in the
performance file in order to leave these for negotiation between management
and the exclusive representative. Many of our Members are concerned that rec-
ords of prospective assignments for SFS members might be subject to abuse.
We support subsection (b), in its reference to the qualities required of the
Senior Foreign Service. Area expertise and various functional skills continue
to be extremely important at senior levels of the Foreign Service, along with
managerial and policy formulation capabilities.
Sec. 641 (pp. 43-45)
Comment: We support this concept, including the explicit reference to the
possibility of limits on time-in-class or a combination of classes, the extension
of TIC to what is now the career minister level and to other Foreign Service
personnel categories, the possibility of either increasing or decreasing TIC,
and the limited extensions of career appointments, to be determined in individ-
ual cases pursuant to recommendations of a selection board ; provided that, all
of these regulations must be negotiated with the exclusive employee representa-
tive, to maintain the confidence of the Service that this authority will not be
abused, either because of external political or budgetary considerations or in-
ternal cronyism. In AID, circumstances are different, and TIC must be established
very carefully and gradually, only by agreement with the exclusive represent-
ative.
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Sec. 642 (p 45, line 8)-Delete "Relative" and insert "Failure to Meet Stand-
ards Of".
Comment: We support the concept of selection out for substandard perform-
ance, including its extension to what is now the Foreign Service Staff Corps, and
to AID, where the authority has not been used recently. We oppose, however, a
section title which suggests that selection out could occur to a career member
of the Service who is performing adequately, albeit not as well as his/her
peers, and if retired, would not receive an immediate annuity. Either immediate
annuities should be extended below age 50 or new FS class one, or the legisla-
tion should not be written so as to prejudice the negotiations on performance
standards precepts. On the other hand, we would have no problem with retire-
ment for relative performance for personnel who are eligible for immediate
annuities and whose retirement would increase promotion opportunities for
outstanding mid-level and junior members.
CHAPTER 7-FOREIGN SERVICE INSTITUTE, CAREER DEVELOPMENT, TRAINING, AND
ORIENTATION
General comment: This chapter reaffirms in substance advances in training
for family members in recent amendments to the 1946 Act. AFSA has supported
these amendments, but now finds that the new authority is being applied, in an
era of limited resources, to give priority to family members over employees,
notably staff corps employees. We strongly urge that the legislative history
provide that training for family members is to be provided, pursuant to sec.
701(b) "in addition" to training for members of the Service, not instead.
Sec. 704(a) (p. 54, lines 6 and 10)-Delete "orientation and language"; lines
7 and 9, after "to" insert "members of the Service and * * *"
Comment: The Secretary should have the authority to compensate for costs
related to all forms of training authorized and approved under this Chapter.
Sec. 704(b) (line 18) -Amend to read : "If a member of the Service or a
member of the family of a member of * * *"
Comment: Sec. 703(4) provides for grants to personnel assigned or detailed
for language training. It does not, however, provide for unusual situations,
direct transfers, which may necessitate training on the employee's own time.
This is precisely the authority being established for family members, and we
feel it should be extended to career personnel.
Sec. 705(b) (2) and (3) (p. 55, lines 14 and 17) -Delete "overseas".
Comment: The peripatetic life of Foreign Service spouses creates difficulties
for spouses not only in finding overseas jobs, but also in maintaining in the
United States adequate contacts and knowledge of the job market to pursue a
career which they may have to do if their spouse is assigned or retires in the
U.S., or they are separated by death or divorce.
Removing the "overseas" constraint on employment assistance for spouses
would also enable management to integrate more fully the career counseling
provided to members of the Service under subsection (a) and to their spouses
under subsection (b).
CHAPTER 8-FOREIGN SERVICE RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY SYSTEM
Sec. 803(a) (p. 56, line 7)
Comment: We believe this definition of participants is an improvement over
present legislation by covering all employees who have entered the Foreign Serv-
ice for a career including such limited appointment employees as the career
candidate junior officer (sec. 322(a)) and employees who have exhausted their
time-in-class and are subject to mandatory retirement but continue to serve on
the basis of a selection board recommendation (Sec. 641(b) ).
Sec. 821(c) (2) (p. 68, line 14) -Revise to read :
"If an annuitant dies and is survived not by a spouse but by a child or children,
an annuity equal to the ma.Timum survivor annuity for a surviving spouse shall
be paid to the child or in equal parts to the children."
Comment: Considering the very unique problems of orphaned minor children,
we believe the current schedule of annuities to he unrealistic. Making arrange-
ments for the further support of such child or children can be very difficult be-
cause foreign service life weakens ties to the extended family and the only surviv-
ing relative may reside in a foreign country. We recommend that the annuity
schedule for surviving orphan children be increased under the above formula.
Sec. 831 (p. 75, line 18)
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Comment: We have no specific recommendations concerning this section but
are concerned by its applicability in the case of an employee who was handicapped
at the time of first employment and who later applies for disability retirement
on the basis of the same handicapping condition.
Sec. 835 (p. 84, lines 9 and 10)-Delete the words "and with the consent of
the Secretary".
Comment: When an employee becomes eligible for voluntary retirement, the
employee should have full fredom to decide when to retire. There is no justifica-
tion that the employee be placed in a condition of "involuntary servitude" and be
required to continue to work in the Foreign Service at the pleasure of the
Secretary.
Sec. 886(b) (p. 84, lines 24 and 25)-Amend to read: "* * * shall determine
that the needs of the Service require any participant * * *"
Comment: The justification for extending the period of employment of a
career employee beyond age 60 should be tied to Service needs, which can be
measured and determined.
Sec. 887 (p. 85)
Comment: This section is an improvement over Sec. 519 in the 1946 Act in that
it extends coverage to all career employees with Presidential appointments not
just chief of mission appointments.
Sec. 872 (a) (p. 100, lines 16, 17, and 18) -Amend to read :
"not to exceed during any calendar year the basic salary the member would be
entitled to receive under this Act if currently employed in the Foreign Service
class which the Secretary determines most compatible to the class the member
held on the date of his or her retirement from the Service."
Comment: Considering inflation and the significant basic federal salary in-
creases which have occurred, it is unrealistic and unfair to use the employee's
salary at time of retirement as a ceiling for what he can receive as annuity and
salary when re-employed. Rather, the ceiling should be no less than that salary
which the employee would be receiving if he or she had continued his or her
career employment.
CHAPTER 9-TRAVEL, LEAVE, AND OTHER BENEFITS
Sec. 901(2) (p. 106, line 13)-Amend to read "required leave in the United
States."
Comment: The revised wording reflects the choice of words in Sec. 911, p. 112.
Sec. 901(3) (p. 106, lines 16, 17, and 18) -Place a semicolon after the word
"duty" in line 16 and delete all the remaining words in the subsection.
Comment: There are a variety of situations when an employee may be given
temporary duty away from home. The Secretary should have flexibility in de-
termining by regulation when and under what conditions family members may,
at government expense, accompany, precede, or follow any employee placed on
temporary duty. The deleted words impose an unnecessary restriction on the
Secretary's authority.
Sec. 901 (p. 106, line 19) After subsection 901(3), add a new subsection
"(4)" and renumber all succeeding subsections. The new subsection (4) to read:
"(4) transporting the personal effects and privately owned automobile, when-
ever the travel of the employee is occasioned by changes in the seat of the gov-
ernment whose capital is his or her post."
Comment: This new section incorporates the purpose served by Sec. 911(6)
of the old Act. In at least one country today, the seat of government shifts
locations every six months and some employees in the mission have to follow
along in order to continue their responsibilities.
Sec. 901(11) (p. 109, line 20)-Amend to read "transporting and clearing
through foreign customs the furniture * * *"
Comment: Many foreign countries impose customs duties and local taxes on
employees' authorized shipment of furniture and household and personal effects.
This is especially onerous in the case of employees who are not commissioned
diplomatic or consular officers. Under some circumstances, the Vienna Diplo-
matic or Consular Convention may give protection. However, all too often host
governments impose -custom duties and other taxes on shipments of staff per-
sonnel's belongings even though the shipment is authorized and paid for by the
United States Government. This amendment relieves the employee from the
burden of such foreign government custom duties and taxes (See Sec. 901(13) ).
Sec. 901(13) (p. 111, line 4)-Amend to read "transporting and clearing
through foreign customs, notwithstanding * * *"
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Comment: This amendment is similar to that proposed for Sec. 901(11).
Many host governments impose custom duties and taxes on automotive vehicles
owned by non-commissioned employees which effectively prohibit the employee
from importing and using his or her privately owned car. Pending the time when
relief can be obtained by means of a negotiated agreement, the employee should
not have to bear the burden of such expenses. All employees should have similar
privileges for owning and using their own cars.
CHAPTER 10-LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS
General comment: We believe that labor relations in the Foreign Service
should generally parallel those in the Civil Service under Title VII of the Civil
Service Reform Act, except that the bargaining unit should continue to parallel
our current system under Executive Order 11636.
Sec. 1001(3) (p. 116, lines 16-19)-Delete "The provisions of the chapter
shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the requirement of an effective
and efficient government."
Comment: This phrase has been added at the last moment, apparently at the
insistence of OMIB. If it is not simply meaningless and redundant, it appears
intended to cast doubt on the flat statement in the previous sentence that "labor
organizations and collective bargaining in the Service are in the public interest
and are consistent with the requirement of an effective and efficient government."
The OMB amendment has no parallel in Title VII.
Sec. 1002 (5) (p. 118, lines 10-12) -Change to read :
"official (except an individual who assists in a purely clerical capacity or
management official who is not engaged in the administration."
Line 15-Delete ")"
Comment : This would make the definition of confidential employee the same
as in Executive Order 11636, under which it has worked well. See also Sec. 1041
(e) below.
Sec. 1002(9) (D) (p. 120, lines 6-7)-Delete "work stoppage or slowdown"
Comment: Amended to conform with Title VII, Sec. 7103(a) (4) (D) of the
Civil Service Reform Act.
Sec. 1002(10) (E) (p. 120, lines 24-25)-Delete and reletter subsequent
subparagraph.
Comment : Inspectors have not been so defined under Executive Order 11630,
and there is no reason why they should be under this Chapter. See also Sec.
1041(e) below.
Sec. 1008-Delete "(a)" p. 121, lines 10-20; reletter succeeding paragraph.
Comment: This paragraph is unnecessary in the light of the subsequent para-
graph. The section-by-section analysis should reflect the fact that no agency
head has felt the need to suspend any provision of Executive Order 11636 with
respect to any element of his agency since the Order took effect in 1971, a period
which has included several wars, evacuations, and other emergency situations.
See. 1005(a) (1) (p. 122, line 25) -Delete "of types and classes".
Comment: Amended to conform to Title VII, Sec. 7106 of Civil Service Reform
Act. Types and classes are negotiable at management's option under paragraph
(b) of this section. We believe the inclusion of these words may have been an
editing oversight.
Sec. 1005(a) (2) (p. 123, line 3) -Delete "promote".
Comment: This parallels Title VII, Sec. 7106 of Civil Service Reform Act.
There should be no implication that promotion procedures are not negotiable ;
we have been doing so under Executive Order 11636 for several years.
Sec. 1011 (p. 124, line 21-22)-Amend to read :
"* * * each agency and the exclusive representative for each bargaining unit,"
Comment: The revised wording clarifies and reinforces the concept of equal-
ity between the agency and the exclusive representative for the bargaining
unit in that agency.
Sec. 1014 (a) (p. 129, lines 14-17)-Delete all after "include"', line 19, change
to read "and [one] two members who [is] are not [an] employees of the * * *"
Sec. 1014(c) (p. 130, lines 22-23) -Delete "or the Secretary finds that the
Panel's action is contrary to the best interests of the Service."
Comment: Title VII makes arbitral awards final. The section-by-section anal-
ysis for Sec. 1014(e) does not even attempt to explain why the Secretary and
other foreign affairs agency heads would need authority which is not granted
to other Department and agency heads. Even when such authority is never in-
voked, as it has not been under Executive Order 11636, it can skew collective
bargaining by making management negotiators more intransigent and unrea-
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sonable. It has been argued that the Disputes Panel, which includes two mem-
bers of the bargaining unit, should not be allowed to make final decisions. We
would accept a Disputes Panel composed of one FSIP member and two pri-
vate members, in exchange for finality.
Sec. 1022 (p. 134, line 14) -Delete " (1) " ; delete lines 16-22.
Comment: Experience with Executive Order 11636 has not indicated the need
to exclude categories (2) and (3) from the bargaining unit. We support a
single, agency-wide, worldwide bargaining unit. Our ran-in-person, highly mo-
bile system and the fact that most of our conditions of employment are of broad
applicability argues against any attempt to balkanize the bargaining unit ac-
cording to post or bureau, rank, or personnel category. One can deal with those
conditions of employment with narrower scope through the internal delega-
tion of authority within the exclusive employee representative.
Sec. 1023(b) (1) (A) (p. 135, line 13)-After "concerning" insert "any griev-
ance or"; lines 15-18, delete all after "practices."
Comment: The amended language parallels Title VII, Sec. 7114 (a) (2) of the
Civil Service Reform Act. Otherwise it would be inconsistent with the role of
the exclusive representative in grievances in Chapter 11.
Sec. 1023 (d) (2) (p. 136, line 22) -Delete "appropriate."
Comment: We seek to parallel Title VII, Sec. 7114(b) (2) of the Civil Serv-
ice Reform Act. Sec. 1002(4) already defines conditions of employment; no
further modifier is apropriate.
Sec. 1031(b) (7) (A) (p. 152, line 21) -Delete "in the United States"
Comment: Title VII, Sec. 7116(b) of the Civil Service Reform Act does not
flatly prohibit informational picketing overseas. We would prefer to be guided
by case law being developed by the FLRA.
Sec. 1041(e) (pp. 147-148)
Comment: This subsection, which parallels Section 1(b) of Executive Order
11636, provides adequate protection to both management and employees against
any real or apparent conflict of interest on the part of any employee other
than a management official or confidential employee in specific circumstances.
Hence, further exclusions from the bargaining unit are unnecessary. See also
Sec. 1002(5) and (10) (E), 1003(a), 1022(2) and (3) above.
Sec. 041(f) (p. 148, lines 9-10) -Delete "prohibited picketing" ; lines 17-
18, delete all after "action".
Comment: Amended to parallel Title VII, Sec. 7120(f) of the Civil Service
Reform Act. We believe that revocation of exclusive recognition would be too
harsh a penalty for prohibited picketing, and that there be no penalty in addi-
tion to revocation.
Sec. 1051(c) (p. 149) -After line 17, insert:
"* * * alleging that -10 percent of the employees in the Department have mem-
bership in the organization."
Comment: Amended to parallel Title VII, Sec. 7115(c) of the Civil Service
Reform Act.
CHAPTER 11-GRIEVANCES
Sec. 1101(a) (1) (p. 151, line 24)-Delete "involuntary".
Comment: A challenge to separation from the Service for the reasons stated
should be clearly grievable without leaving room for argument concerning
whether the individual's separation was "involuntary" if, for example, the em-
ployee were to resign or retire pending disciplinary action.
See. 1101 (a) (1) (p. 152, line 2)-After "prejudicial" insert "character of * * *"
Comment: The revised wording is clearer and more closely adheres to that in
the present legislation. It is the character of the information which can be so
onerous if "falsely prejudicial," rather than the information itself.
Sec. 1101(a)(7) (p. 152, line 23) -After "alleged" add "arbitrary or capri-
cious***"
Comment: Consistent with current law, the provision should be clear in its
coverage of cases where an allowance or financial benefit has been denied arbi-
trarily or capriciously even if permissible under the letter of the applicable
statute.
Sec. 1102 (p. 154, line 7) -Insert " (1) or (7)".
Comment: Employees separated from the Service should have the same oppor-
tunity to raise a grevance with respect to separation, in terms of the timeframe
within which a complaint may be raised, as an employee within the Service has
with respect to all other grievable matters by the terms of Sec. 1104.
Sec. 1103 (b) (p. 154, lines 18-21)
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Comment: This section departs from the current legislation and practice by
allowing a grievant who is in the bargaining unit to be represented only by the
exclusive representative organization, which may approve the participation in the
proceedings by an additional person on the grievant's behalf. Heretofore, a griev-
ant has had full freedom in choosing who and under what circumstances he or
she will be represented.
AFSA is aware that this will impose a new workload on its limited resources.
We are also aware that a grievant may want to advance an argument or seek a
relief which is contrary to AFSA policy. AFSA did not seek a monopoly of griev-
ance representation; only to be present at all grievance proceedings, the result
of which may affect general conditions of employment. Sec. 1104(c) and 1112(2)
below.
Sec. 1103(b) (p. 155, line 3) -Add after "choosing":
"However, the exclusive representative of members of the Service in the agency
in which the employee serves or served shall have the right to be present during
the grievance proceedings."
Comment: The Foreign Service Grievance Board on occasion must interpret
the meaning or intent of agency regulations which derive from agreements be-
tween the agency and the exclusive representative. The exclusive representative
is a necessary party in any such grievance and it is important that the bill en-
able it to protect its interests.
Sec. 1103(d) (p. 155, lines 13 and 14)-Amend to read: "* * * Grievance Board
shall assure that * * *"
Comment: This provision should be mandatory rather than permissive.
Sec. 1104 (a) (p. 156, line 11)-Amend to read "or such other period as * * *"
Comment: The agency and exclusive representative should have flexibility to
negotiate not only a shorter period but also a longer period if necessary to meet
some special or unique circumstances.
Sec. 1104(c) (p. 157, line 25 to page 158, line 1) -Delete "who is not a member
of such bargaining unit."
Comment: Consistent with present legislation, a grievant should have the right
to appeal on his or her own behalf. However, the exclusive representative should
have the right to be present at all proceedings (see Sec. 1103(b) above and Sec.
1112(2) below).
See. 1111(b) (p. 158, lines 1 and 2)-Amend to read:
"* * * each agency and the exclusive representative for each bargaining unit
shall select two nominees * * *"
Comment: The revised wording clarifies and reinforces the concept of equality
between the agency and the exclusive representative for the bargaining unit in
that agency.
Sec. 1112(2) (p. 160, line 4)-After "senatives," insert "the exclusive repre-
sentative,"
Comment: The exclusive representative should be present at all hearings in-
volving members of the Foreign Service, even if not in the bargaining unit, in
the agency in which it is the representative of the Foreign Service, See also Sec.
1103(b) and 1104(c) above.
See. 1113(0) (p. 164, lines 20 and 21)-Place a period after the number "1141"
and delete the remaining words in the subsection.
Comment: The reference to subsection (d) of the same section is redundant
and unnecessary.
CHAPTER 12-CoMPATIBILITY OF PERSONNEL SYSTEMS
Sec. 1201 (p. 168, line 12)-After "through" insert "The Board of the Foreign
Service and * * *"
Sec. 1203 (p. 170, line 12)-Add "and the Board of the Foreign Service."
Sec. 1204 (p. 170, line 23)-Add "and the Board of the Foreign Service."
Comment: This would appear to be consistent with the role envisaged for the
Board of the Foreign Service in Sec. 206, above.
TITLE II-TRANSITION, AMENDMENTS TO OTHER LAWS, REPEALS
AND MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
CHAPTER 1-TRANSITION
Sec. 2101 (b) (p. 173, line 16) -Delete ["availability"] and amend to read "* * *
for worldwide assignment shall also * * *"
Comment: This corrects what is apparently a typographical error.
Sec. 2101(c) (p. 173, line 24) -Insert new subsection "(c)" :
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"(c) Any Foreign Service oftcer candidate currently serving who at the time
of original appointment met the new criteria for appointment at class 4, shall be
immediately promoted to that rank if it has not already been attained."
Comment: This is a necessary transitional authority to avoid disadvantaging
an employee who is already in the Service in contrast to a new recruit.
Sec. 2102 (f) (p. 176, line 21-23) -Delete ["shall not be eligible to compete for
performance pay under Sec. 41 of such Act, and"]
Comment: See Sec. 441 above.
Sec. 2103 (pp. 177-178)
Comment: We support Sec. 2103 as the best available way to make the transi-
tion to the Civil Service. While the ICA-AFGE agreement for voluntary conver-
sion was a good arrangement under the terms available in 1978 when it took ef-
fect, the cleanest way to make the distinction between the Foreign Service and
the Civil Service is through mandatory conversion. The three-year transition
period and the provisions of Sec. 2104 for preservation at the employee's option
of Foreign Service status and benefits is an appropriate way to ease the transi-
tion for domestic-oriented Foreign Service employees to the Civil Service.
Sec. 2104(c) line 14) -Change "five" to "ten"; line 18, delete ["and j line 21,
add "; and (3) who are not eligible for retirement benefits in accordance with
Section 821."
Comment: We support the extension of retirement for substandard throughout
the Foreign Service. However, we have many members of the present Foreign
Service Staff Corps who have served for many years under the assumption that
they would be able to continue to serve until eligible for retirement with an im-
mediate annuity, but who are not yet in FSSO Class 1 or age 50 with 20 years'
service. It would be harsh to apply selection out to them, particularly to secre-
taries who find it very difficult to start a second career after age 40, and particu-
larly in the context of relative performance which may be adequate although
relatively less good than that of their peers. Our amendment would start the
selection out process immediately after enactment, but would avoid for ten years
thereafter actual retirements from the Service of those not eligible for an im-
mediate annuity. This would apply to AID Foreign Service Staff Corps Members
as well.
Sec. 2105 (new 2106) (p. 181, lines 22-23)-delete ["under the direction of the
President"].
Comment: There should be no doubt that the Secretary (and other foreign af-
fairs agency heads) have the discretionary authority to prescribe implementing
transitional regulations-and therefore, the obligation to negotiate these regula-
tions with the exclusive employee representative. We would be particularly in-
terested in negotiations on procedures for the determination of worldwide avail-
ability, pursuant to Sec. 2101(a) (2), p. 173, lines 11-13, and Sec. 2102(d), p. 175,
lines 3-4; and the determination of needs of the Service, pursuant to Sec. 2101
(b) (1), p. 173, lines 19-21, and Sec. 2102(d) (1), p. 175, lines 8-10.
Sec. 2201(a) (p. 186) -Insert a new subsection "(4)" and renumber succeed-
ing subsections:
"(4) Sec. 27 Exemption from Foreign Customs Duties and Local Taxes.
The Secretary of State shall take all appropriate steps, including the negotia-
tion of bilateral and multilateral agreements, necessary to carry out fully the
provisions of the Vienna Diplomatic and Consular Conventions which extend to
non-commissioned diplomatic and consular personnel assigned abroad protection
from host government customs duties and local taxes. Pending completion of
such agreements, the Secretary is authorized to reimburse members of the Serv-
ice for those customs duties and local taxes which the member has paid despite
the protection accorded by the appropriate Vienna convention."
Comment: The Vienna Conventions extend to non-commissioned diplomatic
and consular personnel assigned abroad certain protections from host government
customs duties and local taxes. Despite these assurances, many host governments
deny such exemptions at considerable extra expense to members of the Service.
Departmental efforts to persuade host government compliance with the Conven-
tions have always been time-consuming and all to often unsuccessful. The pur-
pose of this new section is to reinforce the Department's determination to force
other governmental compliance and to authorize reimbursement of disadvantaged
employees, and to place the Department's obligation in this regard on an equal
basis with its obligation to bargain for employment for family members. If other
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136
countries are not willing to accord the internationally recognized privileges, im-
munities, and employment opportunities, the Secretary should withdraw any
such benefits from the country in question.
Sec. 2206 (p. 20, after line 8) -Insert new Section:
Sec. 2206 Post Differential.
5 U.S.C. 5925 is amended as follows: All members of the Service shall receive
the full amount of post differential to which they are entitled, provided that the
amount of basic salary, post differential, and, if applicable, senior differential,
shall not exceed in any fiscal year the salary provided by law for Level I of the
Federal Executive Salary Schedule (5 U.S.C. 5312).
Comment: U.S.C. 5925 establishes a taxable post differential, often called a
"hardship allowance", of 10, 15, 20, or 25 percent of the basic salary as a recruit-
ment and retention incentive to staff assigned to certain designated posts. A post
differential is established for when, and only when, the location of the post in-
volves extraordinarily difficult living conditions, excessive physical hardship,
including physical danger, or notably unhealthful conditions. Living costs are
not taken into account. Heretofore, pursuant to regulations, post differential has
not been paid to chiefs of missions and has been paid to subordinate personnel
only in amounts so that the employee's salary plus post differential will not
exceed $100 less than the salary of the chief of mission. These restrictions were
apparently adopted in the belief that chiefs of mission receive sufficient other
forms of comren~atlon and that their authority would he threatened if their
salary were less than the salary plus post differential paid to subordinate
emplnyees.
AFSA believes these regulatory restrictions are unfair and anachronistic. The
full amount of allowed post differential should be paid to all governmental em-
ployees assigned to the post. This is in line with the recommendations of the 1977
report of the Inter-Agency Committee on Overseas Allowances and Benefits for
U.S. Employee. Using the base salary of the chief of mission as a ceiling on the
amount of post differential that can be paid to a subordinate employee creates
undesirable anomalies. A senior official, including a present-day FSO-3, could
receive more in the form of salary plus allowances if assigned to a relatively sub-
ordinate position at a "differential post" Class I mission than when assigned to a
more challenging position, such as deputy chief of mission, at a Class III "differ-
ential post" mission. The outstanding officer thus has an incentive to accept the
less challenging assignment.
Chiefs of mission are subject to the same physical hardships and unhealthful
conditions as all other members of the mission. In many cases they are the most
likely person at the post to be selected as the target for a terrorist attack or other
acts of violence.
We believe that senior management officials of the Department are sympathetic
to this proposal. See also Sec. 441 above.
CHAPTER 3-REPEALS
Sec. 2301(3) (p. 201, line 24)-After "section" insert "412 and".
Comment: This section is the amendment which abolished premium pay for
Foreign Service officers. Since it took effect in October 1978, it has caused great
bitterness among FSO's, including those who never personally apply for overtime.
The provision for special allowances (repeated as Sec. 462 of the draft bill), has
so far only benefited some 77 FSO's who regularly work more than 55 hours a
week, and they are making much less than they would have. This provision en-
ables the Department. by overworking its FSO's, to cut its costs and avoid re-
questing adequate staffing.
While we understand that the author of this amendment was aiming at what
he regarded as the unprofessional practice of FSO's seeking overtime pay, the
provision bans all forms of premium pay for FSO's, including extra pay for night,
Sund"y. and holiday work which may be imposed on the office or activity in which
the FSO serves with other Foreign Service or non-Foreign Service personnel who
are eligible for premium pay. In principle, FSO's are not even allowed to take
compensatory time off or to participate in flexitime which the Office of Personnel
Management is now urging.
We strongly urge the repeal of the provsion. See also Sec. 462 above.
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CHAPTER 4-SEVERARILITY, SAVING PROVISION, REPORTS AND EFFECTIVE DATE
Sec. 2402 (p. 203) -After line 9 insert:
"(including recognition of any organization of Foreign Service officers and
employees in the Agency for International Development as the es;clusive repre-
sentative of employees in the International Development Cooperation Agency)."
Comment: IDCA is being touted as not just a "successor agency" to AID,
within the meaning of Executive Order 11636, but a superagency of which AID
is only one element. We want to make sure that the status of the current exclu-
sive representative of AID Foreign Service people, and thus its ability to pro-
tect the interests of the AID Foreign Service in the coming transition, is not
adversely affected either by the IDCA reorganization plan or this bill.
Sec. 2402 (line 16)-Delete ["on January 1, 1980"] and insert
"three months following the date of its enactment."
Comment: A three-month delay in the effective date, which was used both in
the Foreign Service Act of 1946 and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, is
more realistic than the January 1980 date, and would allow sufficient time to
begin planning the transition.
Mr. HYDLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With respect to the uniqueness of the Foreign Service, we believe
that the Foreign Service is necessarily unique and different from the
civil service because it responds to the Nation's need for a qualified
career service available worldwide, including the United States. There-
fore we welcome the act's reaffirmation of this concept in section 531.
We support the provision under sections 2103 and 2104 for conversion
to the civil service with the option of preserved Foreign Service
status and benefits, as the most rapid way to eliminate the anomalous
"FS domestic-only" category while protecting the rights of persons
in that category.
With respect to the subject of up-or-out and performance, promo-
tions in the service have stagnated in the Foreign Service in recent
years because of the lack of attrition at the top. The principal proposal
in the bill to restore attrition from and promotion to the senior ranks,
and thereby enhance performance, is the Senior Foreign Service.
Many of us oppose the label Senior I+ oreign Service, finding it too
much like the senior executive service, and likely to promote unnec-
essary distinction or division within a service that has always prided
itself on a large measure of collegiality among its members of all
ranks.
But when one looks beyond the label, there is much that is familiar
to those who know the senior ranks of our Foreign Service. Mandatory
retirement at 60 and retirement with immediate annuity at 50 with 20
years' service are retained. In addition, retirement for excessive time-
in-class and for substandard performance are extended to the top
rank, presently Career Minister, as well as to additional personnel
categories now subject to them.
Retirement for failure to be reassigned is extended from chiefs of
mission to all Presidential appointees to specific positions and there
is a new limited career extension which management intends to couple
with shorter time-in-class at the senior level. If used properly, these
mechanisms will stabilize and improve promotion opportunities
throughout the Service, pursuant to section 602(b). We approve of
all of these provisions so long as they are implemented rationally and
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fairly, by agreement with the exclusive representative, so as to give
the Service confidence that no administration can manipulate them
to create excessive insecurity, punish candid internal "whistle-
blowers" or critics, or reward sycophancy or cronyism in the senior
ranks. 0
Pay comparability-equal pay for equal work-is a hallowed prin-
ciple for AFSA, as it is for the Congress. In recent years our FSO
corps has fallen behind comparable GS personnel. Perhaps the first
FSO to draw attention to this problem was a junior officer named
Jim Leach, through a landmark study of the problem in 1971.
Although Mr. Leach resolved his own personal problem of pay
comparability with the civil service, we know he retains a sympa-
thetic interest in the problem. We have continued to work at it. An
AFSA-initiated, congressionally mandated study, just completed by
Hay Associates, confirms that FSO's have long been underpaid, and
tends to support current Foreign Service staff corps pay levels against
criticism that they have been too high.
The bill does not in itself implement the Hay study findings, but
makes it possible to do so. We support section 421, which establishes
a single Foreign Service pay schedule with the link between new
FS-1 and GS-15 in place of the old two pay plans with obsolete
links to the general schedule.
In discussions with the executive branch, we are supporting a 12-
grade, 10-step schedule identical to the general schedule between
grades 15 and 4.
We have here our expert, Bill Veale, who did not make the front
table, who is available to discuss this in further detail, and we also
prepared a statement which was prepared just today, and we have
several copies. If you will tell us what to do with them, we will give
them to the appropriate staff members of the committee.
At the senior level we strongly support pay comparability between
the Senior Foreign Service and the senior executive service. Section
411 does this with respect to basic rates of pay.
We favor the continuation of post classification of chiefs of mission
provided in section 401 because it reflects and rewards the level of
performance required by a particular ambassadorship. We believe
chiefs of mission and other senior personnel should also receive the
taxable post differential (often called "hardship pay") authorized
under 5 U.S.C. 5925, but withheld from them by regulation. We sus-
pect the Department would like to do this but the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget has ordered them not to do it because of the budget-
ary implications. All we can say is if the Department is unwilling or
unable to provide hardship pay for senior officers, thus recognizing
the difficulty under which one performs one's duties at a hardship
post, then it is difficult to imagine any money actually would be avail-
able for a newer concept such as performance pay.
In any case we oppose the concept of performance pay patterned
after the SES and contained in section 441. We believe that a recom-
mendation by a supervisor to a selection board could be abused to
insure conformity with a current policy line.
In addition to post differential, we would recommend that the posi-
tion of Deputy Assistant Secretary, or its equivalent in State or
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IDCA/AID, be compensated at executive level 5. Beyond that, we
regret we are unable at this point to make any specific proposals,
other than the lifting of the executive level pay cap, which would
insure pay comparability, and reward and encourage good perform-
ance, without being subject to abuse. If we can think of anything, we
will be in touch with you.
We believe our successors on the governing board will think about
this further and come back to you should new ideas arise.
With respect to International Development, we say together with
the unified personnel system submitted by the administration in May,
and the reorganization plan establishing the International Develop-
ment Cooperation Administration (IDCA), this bill establishes as a
matter of law and national policy the Nation's long-term commitment
to international development carried out in Washington and overseas
primarily by a qualified, disciplined career Foreign Service.
We advocated the establishment of a Foreign Service Development
officers corps parallel to the FSO Corps in the Department of State
and the FSIO Corps in the ICA.
On the other hand too much compatibility too soon would make
bad policy with respect to AID people. Somebody told me the average
grade of AID people is FSR-3 and the time in class is 7 years. This
is because of the enormous reduction in the numbers of AID people
that we have needed over the last decade and the application of reduc-
tions in force to achieve these reductions, so it would make no sense
to suddenly apply time-in-class in AID where it has not been applied
before. You would simply be getting rid of the people who may be
still the best people at their rank in the Foreign Service.
Any application of these concepts of time-in-class and substandard
performance to AID would have to be done through full consent of
the Foreign Service expressed through its exclusive representative.
The Foreign Service Staff Corps is vital to the functioning of the
Foreign Service. For example, secretaries and communicators are stay-
ing on top of the exponential increase in the Government's production
of words through their mastery of the latest word-processing tech-
nology. Yet the Staff Corps suffers from a lack of status.
We have identified some reasons why this is so. Their career pros-
pects have been blighted in recent years by difficulties in changing to
more promising career fields, and other reasons. We are addressing
some of these problems under existing legislative authority but the bill
itself does not do much to correct or address these problems and there-
fore the Staff Corps has little enthusiasm for it.
However, the creation of a single Foreign Service Schedule abolish-
ing FSS is welcome. It will prevent future 'unearned promotions
through pay-plan switching, and facilitate career specialty changes.
The whole Foreign Service, including the Staff Corps, welcomes the
extention to the Staff Corps of such performance-related concepts as
the career candidate appointment and tenuring process (sec. 322) and
retirement for excessive time-in-class (sec. 641) or substandard per-
formance. There needs however to be a longer transition period than
is envisioned by the bill. We urged a 10-year transition before actually
retiring people who are selected out for substandard performance but
who are not eligible for immediate annuity under the concept of 50
years with 20 years service.
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We have mentioned a number of other proposals which we would like
to see added to the bill or legislative history which would benefit the
Staff Corps.
With respect to protection of the career Service, we have frequently
complained about the appointment of excessive numbers of noncareer
chiefs of mission, many of them unqualified; substantial numbers of
schedule C or otherwise noncareer appointments in Washington, and
easy lateral entry into the career Service itself of those enjoying politi-
cal patronage or whose skills are already in ample supply within the
Service.
There actions are bad for the career Service and contrary to the na-
tional interest because they reduce career promotions and assignment
opportunities, and make the career track the slow track to success in the
foreign affairs agencies. This harms morale and performance within
and recruitment into the Service.
We have identified some areas in which this bill does improve the
existing situation and areas in which we think still further improve-
ments are desirable.
The association regards chapter 10, which deals with labor-manage-
ment relations, as the most important chapter in the bill. With or with-
out a full new Foreign Service Act, this chapter should be enacted as
quickly as possible, with the amendments indicated in our detailed
comments.
We mentioned a few perfecting amendments that are needed to as-
sure full parity between bargaining rights enjoyed by Service people
under the Civil Service Reform Act and Foreign Service people under
this legislation.
In addition we want to emphasize very strongly we favor the single
worldwidh, agencywide bargaining unit in our current Executive
Order 11636, which continues in section 1022. As indicated by the rest
of the bill, our conditions of employment include worldwide assign-
ment, and most of our personnel policies are applicable worldwide.
Only local working conditions and the local applicability of world-
wide policies might be logical subjects for local collective bargaining,
and those can be handled, as now, through discussions at post or bu-
reaus with reference to Washington in case of disagreement.
Some have suggested that the different personnel categories could
have separate bargaining units, but this would only weaken the em-
ployees' bargaining power; the whole would be less than the sum of its
parts, and management would no doubt claim that agencywide per-
sonnel policies were not negotiable. Such balkanization would be con-
trary to the American and worldwide trend toward industrial unions,
capable of aggregating and representing the various interests among
the workers tl''ey represent. AFSA does this through systems of sub-
committees dealing with special interests and with ad hoc problems.
We also favor a bargaining unit as large as possible, with narrow
exclusions of "confidential" employees and of "management officials."
We believe that the Executive Order 11636 has worked well in this
respect. We have seen no evidence presented by the Department in its
testimony or in its section-by-section analysis in support of reducing
the bargaining unit, taking bites out of the bargaining unit as is pro-
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posed. It could be worse, but we don't see the necessity for any expan-
sion of the exclusions of the bargaining unit.
According to my information in the Department of State under the
present Executive order, 850 people out of about 9,000 are excluded.
Proposed legislation would exclude 1,200. Those who advocate using
the title VII bargaining unit have to face up to the fact that some
estimates indicate that 5,800 people would be excluded. That is more
than half of the Foreign Service. It goes way down to the junior ranks
because we have a lot of foreign national employees that we super-
vise overseas in consular and administrative units and in AID pro-
grams, for example, and this definition of supervisors, if it were ap-
p1.ed as it exists in the Civil Service Reform Act, it would gut the bar-
gaining unit. So we believe the burden of proof is on those who want
to reduce the bargaining unit compared with what has worked well
under Executive Order 11636.
Mr. FASCELL. Will you stop here before I get any more confused. The
850 reduction you are talking about is represented by what is in the
bill in terms of additional exclusions?
Mr. HYDLE. No, Mr. Chairman. My information is that under the
present-
Mr. FASCELL. It would go to 1,200-some?
Mr. HYDLE. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Those are additional exclusions in this bill?
Mr. HYDLE. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. Where does the 5,800 come from?
Mr. HYDLE. That is a projection of what would happen if we were
forced to go back to parallel title VII, Civil Service Reform Act and
exclude what are defined as supervisors.
Mr. FASCELL. That goes to the testimony Mr. Koczak just gave us.
Mr. HYDE. Yes, sir.
Apart from its inherent merits, chapter 10 is important to us because
it enables us to bargain with agency management on the application of
the authority over conditions of employment provided elsewhere in the
bill, including, but not limited to, the following :
The composition of selection boards and the precepts under which
they prepare their recommendations; _
How to fill available promotion numbers; that is, how many pro-
motions and how many career extensions ;
Procedures for granting tenure;
Procedures for determining availability for worldwide assignment;
that is, in connection with chapter 1 of title II, and other assignment
procedures;
The application of section 641 and 642 authority to AID and to
other personnel categories which have not had it in the past.
We believe that chapter 10 provides the exclusive representative
with the ability to bargain on these issues, and more, to protect the
career Service from arbitrary abuse of the other authorities in the act.
We have made crystal clear to the Secretary and other management
officials that we must have that ability to bargain.
Some management officials may believe, or hope, that matters such
as changes in time-in-class are within their sole discretion. As I said,
we believe they are wrong, but if that is indeed their hope, they are
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simply living in an earlier, less enlightened, harsher age of labor rela-
tions. The career Foreign Service will not tolerate any abuse of the
authority in the act. We ask the Congress to help avoid such an abuse.
If abuse were attempted either we would be able to stop it through the
mechanisms of chapter 10 or else we would have to come running back
to Congress and complain about the abuse of authority.
I suggest that it is in the interest of the Congress which has
an enormous workload to make it clear in the legislative history
that the kinds of things that I have mentioned are subject to collective
bargaining.
I think I would like to conclude the prepared remarks and before
we go to questions, in answer to the one question that the chairwoman
asked I would like to invite my successor President-elect Bleakley to
make a brief statement.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH BLEAKLEY, PRESIDENT-ELECT,
AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Mr. BLEAKLEY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
My name is Kenneth Bleakley. I will assume the presidency of
AFSA next month. Mr. Hydle, president of the American Foreign
Service Association, has spoken for the women and men of the Foreign
Service.
Speaking as the president-elect, I ran on a platform which sought
reform through administrative change, rather than through a new
Foreign Service Act, but which stated, that should the Department
submit its legislative proposals, we would support what we can, en-
courage amendment where needed and seek to block counterproductive
amendments.
The position taken by the current AFSA president today is con-
sistent with that approach. We therefore are quite comfortable in hav-
ing Mr. Hydle testify on behalf of all the women and men of the
Foreign Service today.
If I might add Just one personal comment-if there is a single thing
which unites the Foreign Service it is our belief in the need for a sepa-
rate and distinct Foreign Service to serve our country. There has never
been a time in our Nation's history when it has been more important
for the United States to live by its wits abroad. Certainly we will con-
tinue to need dedicated civil servants willing to go abroad for short
periods of time to serve our Nation in various specialities; but, if ever
there was a time we needed integrated skills and the crosscultural
relationships that a Foreign Service officer manages to establish in a
disciplined career, this is the time for it.
So I hope, as you look at this very important piece of legislation,
you will keep in mind, as demonstrated by your presence here today;
that what we are talking about does matter, and that there is a real
and genuine need for a unified Foreign Service.
That was the message which our membership delivered to Mr. Hydle
just a couple of hours ago when it voted over 10 to 1 to support the
general outlines of the statement he has just made.
Thank you very much.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Hydle, do you have more testimony then?
Mr. HYDLE. That covers my formal remarks, but I am glad Mr.
Bleakley reminded me-as it happens, we had our annual meeting of
the Washington membership today, and if I may just read a one-page
resolution which the membership passed, which is directly relevant :
Having heard and discussed the outgoing Governing Board's report on the
draft Foreign Service Act of 1979,
Having reviewed the testimony prepared for the hearing of July 9, 1979,
The annual meeting of the Washington membership on July 9, 1979,
Approves the outgoing Governing Board's efforts to keep AFSA membership
in Foreign Service informed and to seek its advice regarding the draft act,
Approves the outgoing governing board's efforts to obtain from the Depart-
ment's management specific improvements in the draft act,
Approves the general outlines of testimony prepared for the July 9, 1979.
hearing,
Recommends the incoming governing board vigorously seeks further improve-
ment in the act while keeping the membership informed and seeking its advice
on the AFSA position.
The vote was 50 in favor and 4 opposed.
That is all for the moment.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much. I am going to do what I did
before, and that is, defer my questions until the end.
But I want to comment, Mr. Bleakley, on a personal note, on his
choice of a running mate. But that is for my own bias.
Congressman Fascell.
Mr. FASCELL. The statement on pay comparability-do you want
that in the record?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. The statement on comparability prepared by AFSA
I would like to have put in the record at this point.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
STATEMENT BY AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE AssocrATION ON PAY COMPARABILITY
FOR THE U.S. FOREIGN SERVICE
The American Foreign Service Association seeks pay parity for the Foreign
Service with the Civil Service. We do so for two reasons. We believe it is the best
way to protect the Foreign Service from suffering again, as it has for at least
the past ten years, a serious pay disadvantage. At the same time, we believe that
the independence of the Foreign Service can and must stand firmly on grounds
other than the similarity of its pay system to that of the Civil Service. The need
for a separate Foreign Service rests instead on the flexibility of a rank-in-person
system, global availability, and a unique career development system that recruits
the best applicants from all walks of life and then moves them into this country's
first line of defense.
We understand that the management of the Department is currently discussing
with OMB and OPM a new pay system for the Foreign Service. This manage-
ment proposal, however, is seriously deficient in a number of respects :
It establishes a more complex pay system with fewer linkage points to the
Civil Service scale;
It fails by a wide margin to provide for pay increases to middle-grade
officers at levels which the Hay Associates pay study substantiates ;
It puts a greater premium on longevity in grade rather than on upward
mobility ;
It fails to establish new grades, missing a chance to increase promotion
opportunities over a career ;
It reduces in effect the current rough equivalencies between GS and FSS
grades at the lower staff levels.
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In contrast, our proposal is quite fair and simple. We seek direct grade and
step linkage to the Civil Service GS scale, creating a 12-class FS system from
GS-15/FS-1 to GS-4/FS-12. We would use the 10-step system of the GS scale,
in which pay step increases are awarded less frequently the longer a person
stays in the same grade-an incentive to move up or get out, we think.
We believe the Hay study fully justifies such linkages, particularly when
Hay Associates recommended that Foreign Service pay levels should be increased
by 15 percent over Civil Service levels to allow for proper compensation of the
overseas dimension of Foreign Service work.
Our proposal would use the full GS scale from GS-4 to GS-15, providing a new
class for officers between current FSO-6 and FSO-5, and for staff between cur-
rent FSS-5 and FSS-4. The new officer class would be equated to GS-12, and, we
believe, could be filled through a modest but updated classification effort aimed
at current FSO-6's who have been given tenure. The new staff class would
equate to GS-10 and would be a first step toward development of administra-
tive assistants long needed in the Foreign Service. In any case, both the new
officer and staff classes would serve to improve promotion opportunities over a
Management has calculated that its proposal will cost about $13 million more
a year. Our proposal, because it goes further to rectify past problems and bring
about pay parity, will, of course, cost more-perhaps twice as much. But we
see this as a relatively cheap investment in America's future-less than the
price of three F-14 Tomcat Fighters of the type now sitting in Iran.
A Foreign Service having full pay parity with the rest of the federal service
will be a much more efficient and productive institution. Not only will pay parity
be a significant boost to morale-currently at an all time low-but it will go a
long way toward helping the Service attract and retain the best qualified of all
backgrounds. In short, it will insure that the Foreign Service of the United
States is democratic and truly representative of the American people. The last
thing America needs in these times is a Service made up of only those who have
independent means.
CURRENT LINKAGES (3 POINT)
15-----------------------
$38,160.
3------------------------
1--------------------------------------------------
$34,642.
14-----------------------
$32,442.
--------------
4 (No.1)--
2----------------------- 13-----------------------
$27,453.
-
12-----------------------
$23,087.
5------------------------
3--------------------------------------------------
$22,137.
11-----------------------
$19,263.
6------------------------
4--------------------------------------------------
$18,179.
10-----------------------
$17,532.
5(+)-------------------- 9------------------------
$16,265/$15,920.
71-----------------------
---------------------- ------------------------
$15,222.
6(+)----------- ------- 8------------------------
$14,561/514,414.
8'(No.2)----------------
7(+)-------------------- 7------------------------
$13,014/$13,041/$13,014.
8------------------------ 6(+)--------------------
$11,685/$11,712.
9------------------------ 5(+)--------------------
$10,473/$10,507.
No.3--------------------
10----------------------- 4------------------------
$9,391.
1 Officer exam entry levels.
INITIAL DEPARTMENT PROPOSAL (9 CLASSES-PARTIAL AT 2 POINTS)
3 (No. 1) ---------------
1-------------------- 15-------------------
1--------------------
$35,616.
4----------------------
2------------------------------------------
2--------------------
$29,770.
13-----------------------------------------
5----------------------
3------------------------------------------ 3--------------------
$23,825.
12-----------------------------------------
6 (No. 2) ---- ----------
4------------ 11-------------------
4 '--- ---------------
$17,979.
7----------------------
5-------------------- 9--------------------
51 ------------------
$15,920.
8------`---------------
6-------------------- 7--------------------
6 1--- ---------------
$13,014.
7-------------------- 6--------------------
7--------------------
$11,712.
8-------------------- 5--------------------
8--------------------
$10 507.
,
9/10----------------- 4--------------------
9--------------------
$9,191.
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3-------------------------- 15- 1.
4-------------------------- 1 14-- 2.
5------------------------------ 2------------------------------ 13----------------------------- 3.
New class---------------------- 3------------------------------ 12----------------------------- 4?'
6------------------------------ 4------------------------------ 11----------------------------- 5'
New class---------------------- 10----------------------------- 6.
7------------------------------ 5------------------------------ 9------------------------------ 7.'
6------------------------------ 8------------------------------ 8.
8------------------------------ 7------------------------------ 7------------------------------ 9.1
8------------------------------ 6------------------------------ 10.
9 5------------------------------ 11.
10- 4------------------------------ 12.
I Officer exam entry levels.
Note: Grandfather provisions would protect FSS grades against slight pay reductions involved in these linkages.
Mr. FASCELL. I went through this thing with you rather carefully,
and it is a well organized statement, I might add.
I want to be sure, so I am going to ask it again : On square 1 you guys
are for the bill?
Mr. HYDLE. Mr. Chairman, I have to
Mr. FASCELL. With some amendments?
Mr. HYDLE. We have not decided to say whether we are for or against
the bill. Our position is as I read it earlier today.
Mr. FASCELL. You would rather have individual amendments to the
existing law?
Mr. HYDLE. We said what our initial position was.
Mr. FASCELL. It sounds very legalistic, Mr. Hydle. I would like to
know why a lawyer advised you to say that?
Mr. HYDLE. This was more of a reaction of the Foreign Service. It
was a groundswell of opinion that it would be better, for example,
not to come up to the Congress seeking new legislative authority if we
had not used to the fullest extent existing legislative authority. But
the question of whether to have just a few amendments instead of a
comprehensive bill, a draft bill, we feel, is overtaken by the Secretary's
decision to present to you the draft bill, and our position on the bill is
that we don't endorse it today, but that it does contain some provisions
which would help the Service deal with its problems, and that we
believe the most useful service we can perform today is to provide a
detailed commentary on the bill, which we have attempted to do in
writing and in our oral testimony.
Mr. FASCELL. You support several principles that are spelled out in
the bill?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes, sir.
Mr. LEACH. Will the gentleman yield?
I am struck by the fact that this sounds like our position vis-a-vis
Iran and Nicaragua. We are neither for nor against; we are confused.
The women and men of these two subcommittees are somewhat con-
fused as well. I would hope, very seriously, you would come out with
a definitive position, because bills have to be voted up or down. I
recognize your difficulty, but I am not convinced that the resolution of
your membership is altogether helpful to the subcommittees.
Mr. HYDE. Congressman, I recognize your difficulty. All I can
say is that at this point this is the most definitive statement that the
Foreign Service and AFSA, representing the Foreign Service, can
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make; namely, a detailed commentary on the legislation. We assume, if
the analogy used in discussing with our membership today, which is, if
Howard Baker can say he has not yet decided whether he is going to
support this SALT treaty, then we at this point can withhold a final
decision on whether we support the bill.
We have recommended numerous amendments and the creation of
legislative history, and we would like the bill to be protected from any
attacks on the provisions that we like.
Down the road a way, I have confidence that our successor governing
board will be able to make a more definitive statement.
Mr. LEACH. I would like to comment briefly. I am not sure I ap-
preciate the analogy to Mr. Baker, but perhaps the board would want
to retreat up to Camp David.
Mr. FASCELL. It sounds like we will be at this a long time, and Mr.
Bleakley seems to be very intelligent and articulate, and I am sure he
will have the board eating out of the palm of his hand before we get
through. We look for whatever definitive positions will be forthcoming.
How long has it been since the association had Congress consider any
amendments to the law?
Mr. HYDLE. Last year, Mr. Chairman, in the authorization process.
Mr. FASCELL. How long before that?
Mr. HYDLE. I believe it was a year before.
Mr. FASCELL. Is it fair to say it has been a continuing process?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Is it fair to say the Congress has tried to be responsive
to the requests of the association? .
Mr. HYDLE. It is very fair to say, and you, personally, have been very
responsive.
Mr. FASCELL. I was not thinking about myself; I was thinking about
Congress, generally. I want to get something on track in terms of what
we are trying to do. I say this without any specific purpose except to
make the record clear, that this Secretary of State, Cy Vance, in my
judgment, has cooperated more than any Secretary of State in my
experience-and I have been here 25 years-in trying to come to grips
with the personnel problems.
What is your view?
Mr. HYDLE. I think that he has taken a very serious approach to this,
and when we spoke to him about it in May, it was obvious he had read
his briefing books, and he was able to ask specific questions about the
legislation, the draft as it was then, and our position on it. There is no
question.
Mr. FASCELL. In terms of the internal discussions within State in
arriving at its position, I want to be sure that I understand that you
are saying that the Department made the most extensive effort at
consultation. Am I correct?
Mr. HYDLE. That is correct, sir. There has never been in our memory
a more extensive effort to consult within the Foreign Service and be-
tween the Service and the management of the Department.
Mr. FASCELL. All I want to get here on record is the fact there has
been a good faith effort on the part of management to come to grips
with the problem. Otherwise, I certainly would not be here.
Mr. HYDLE. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Because we are partially responsible for all this effort.
We have been needling them for 10 Years. Go ahead.
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147
STATEMENT OF ROBERT STERN, STATE DEPARTMENT REPRESENT-
ATIVE, AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Mr. STERN. Mr. Chairman, when we first were told about this, and
we went out to our membership to try and get responses, one of the
things that became very clear, and perhaps reflects as to why we are
coming out with what we are today, is that most of the abuses that this
bill is designed to correct are abuses that were put in by previous man-
agement, often over the objections of the association.
In a sense, every couple of years a new team comes in, with great
sincerity, with some sort of Holy Grail that is going to take care of
all our problems; yet, 2 years later, we find ourselves looking for a
new way of getting out of the newer mess we are in.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me tell you something then : I can't help but inter-
ject; we have the same problem in the Congress, and when the broom
sweeps clean, many people say it does not change a darn thing; it is
just more of the same.
Mr. STERN. This is the fear we had, sir. For example, one of the
reasons put forward for Senior Foreign Service was, they thought at
the senior ranks, that glut was caused by management's choosing uni-
laterally to give 22 years' time in class to senior grades. So we felt-
and many of us still feel-we can administratively deal with many
remedies and what we cannot deal with under the existing act is where
we should be seeking the amendments.
As you rightly said, you have been very serious in working with us
on these things, but nevertheless we are here. We do have this piece of
paper in front of us.
Mr. FASCELL. I think we should work, and where it is necessary, we
should establish the statutory base for whatever we want to do, if that
is possible, and not leave it up to changes in administration either by
executive order or by the internal dynamics of the Department, de-
pending on who happens to be Secretary of State or who happens to
be running the Department other than the Secretary of State, as was
the case in the past.
Anyway, going ahead, on page 9 of your testimony, you indicate
dissatisfaction with lateral entry programs, since it has the effect of
increasing the number of women and minorities.
Are you saying that these groups are unable to perform their duties
as well as white males?
Mr. HYDLE. No, sir.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We would like to have a little expansion.
Mr. HYDLE. The lateral entry exists under the present Foreign Serv-
ice Act. In 1975, an agreement was reached between the Department
and AFSA which provided for bringing in women and minorities at
the middle level ; but the agreement provided this should- be done con-
sonant with the personnel needs of the Service, the specific functional
needs in addition to the broader idea there is a need to be broadly rep-
resentative of the American people.
The Department has ignored these functional needs in bringing
people in; that was the problem we focused on in our testimony.
Mr. FASCELL. I have one more question : As exclusive bargaining
agents for Foreign Service employees, can you specifically outline your
responsibility to the members as they now are, and how you would
perceive them under the proposed legislation?
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Mr. HYDLE. I would like to invite our legal counsel to comment on
that.
STATEMENT OF KATHERINE WAELDER, LEGAL COUNSEL,
AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Ms. WAELDER. Mr. Chairman, may I ask you to define what are the
parameters of the information you are looking for?
Mr. FAsoELi.. I want to know how you relate to State and AID em-
ployees now, and how you are going to relate to them after enactment
of this bill. Is there any change
Ms. WAELDER. In whom we represent?
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
MS. -VVAELDER. We represent all Foreign Service personnel, both in
State and in AID in separate agencywide bargaining units. Excluded
from those bargaining units are those persons occupying positions de-
fined as "management official" or "confidential employee."
Mr. FASCELL. Are those exceptions under Executive order?
Ms. WAELDER. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Go ahead.
Ms WAELDER. Under those formulations that have been in effect
since 1971, approximately 90 pem ent of persons in the Foreign Service
are within the bargaining unit; approximately 10 percent are excluded
by that definition. Under chapter 10, as it is currently drafted, further
personnel are excluded from the bargaining unit. The bargaining units
would still be agencywide; there would be an agencywide bargaining,
unit for all Foreign Service persons, and each of the three foreign aft--
fairs agencies. That would be the Department of State, USICA, and
AID. Each bargaining unit would include persons assigned domes-
tically and assigned overseas.
The bargaining units would exclude those persons in positions de-
fined as "management officials" and "confidential employees." It would
also exclude certain other positions and other functions within the
Department, including persons involved in internal security, intelli-
gence or counterintelligence functions in auditing functions, and per-
sons engaged in tasks on behalf of management personnel other than
in a purely clerical capacity.
Those additional exclusions would bring the number of persons in
our bargaining unit back down to-I believe-approximately 80 per-
cent would probably be a fair estimate.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Hydle said 850 are excluded now under Executive
order, and 1,200, I believe he said, would be excluded under the bill,
and you just testified as to the enlargement of the exclusion contained
in this bill when you defined categories of people.
Those 850 people are in what categories?
Mr. HYDLE. We commented on it directly in chapter 10.
Mr. FASCELL. The position you are taking with respect to additional
exclusions is, they ought not to be added in the definition of
"exclusive" ?
Mr. HYDLE. That is correct, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. By virtue of the nature of their work?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Whereas, management is already arguing the opposite?
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Mr. HYDLE. I am not sure what they are arguing. The bargaining
unit that has existed under Executive Order 11636 has worked fine
with these categories included in the bargaining unit.
Mr. FASCELL. There have been no complaints?
Mr. HYDE. None to my knowledge, and there is no case made by the
Department.
Mr. FASCEELL. That is why you made the statement-the burden is on
somebody else?
Mr. HYDLE. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. That is all.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Do you support, at this moment in time, the window
concept?
Mr. HYDLE. The threshold window concept, I believe you are refer-
ring to section 602 (a), which says that within the parameters of time
in class there will be a period of time during which one can apply for
promotion into the Senior Foreign Service. The initial version of this
was rigid; it said within 2 years or 3 years after you get into the FS-1
rank-now FSO-3-you had to start being considered for promotion
and 4 or 5 years thereafter you were finished; if you had not been pro-
inoted, you would be able to hang around until your time in class had
been completed, but not be promoted.
We opposed that because we thought it was too rigid and that a per-
son's efficiency would decline if the person were not promoted but was
still waitin'r for time-in-class to expire.
The 602 (a) is an improvement over that, in that it makes it possible
for the member of the Foreign Service to decide for himself or herself
when to apply for promotion, and 602 (b) also puts into legislation the
requirement that promotion into, and attrition out of, the Senior
Foreign Service be managed so as to stabilize promotion opportunities,
so a person who made a decision on when to go in, or when to seek pro-
motion, would not be playing such a game of Russian roulette.
With those caveats, we think that the section 602 (a) as it exists is
adequate.
Mr. LEACH. With the provision you have to request to be considered?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes.
Mr. LEACH. Do you like that?
Mr. HYDLE. We would rather have request rather than have a fixed
date by which you have to seek.
I might say, also in AID, where there is at present no time-in-class,
it would make no sense to establish a threshold window unless and
until a reasonable time-in-class is established.
Mr. MCBRIDE. I might add that our position necessarily assumes
that time-in-class would be adjusted in tandem with the closing of the
threshold window so when a person's window closed, his or her time-
in-class would also end at roughly the same time.
Mr. LEACH. Do you feel you have a firm commitment from the Sec-
retary of State on pay comparability?
Mr. HYDLE. Let me ask our guru on pay comparability, Bill Veale, to
respond to that.
Mr. VEALE. It is my understanding, Congressman, that the Secretary
appreciates the problem now in the Foreign Service, that we lack
comparability with civil service in a number of areas.
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. I am not exactly certain of the degree of his commitment, particu-
larly in connection with the passage of this new Foreign Service Act.
Mr. LEACH. Has AFSA undertaken any negotiations with OMB at
this point?
Mr. VEALE. No; we have not.
Mr. LEACH. The reason I raised that, is State has testified it is con-
cerned, but they have also testified that this proposal will cost nothing,
which is somewhat contradictory. Now, my feeling is, State is sym-
pathetic but I am not sure that there might not be some reason for
AFSA to reserve judgment on the bill without a firm commitment.
Mr. HYDLE. We feel that option remains open to the new governing.
board under the formula. We have described concern in our position
on the bill.
Mr. LEACH. Would you object, given the possible cost implications,
to a phased-in pay adjustment over a 3-year period, for example?
Mr. HYDLE. I don't think we have a firm view on that.
Our view is, as I described, briefly, there should be a 12-class and
10-step system, and I would say that we would rather have phase-in
than inadequate final solution, if we are forced to a choice between
those two.
Mr. LEACH. Do you have a position on whether or not there should be
a parachute, as there is in the SES?
Mr. HYDLE. We don't favor the parachute.
Mr. LEACH. Do you have a strong position on mandatory retirement?
Mr. HYDLE. We favor mandatory retirement at 60. Our distin-
guished legal counsel to my right submitted an amicus curiae brief to
the Supreme Court in the Bradley v. Vance case which said, briefly,
that mandatory retirement is part of the package of Foreign Service
personnel system which is intended to assure what we called, colloqui-
ally, "up and out." 1
Do you want to add anything to that?
MS. WAELDER. Not at this time.
Mr. LEACH. We all know the problems of stagnation in the Service
today, but in principle I have never been totally convinced of manda-
tory retirement. If you look at other foreign services in the world, if
anything, there is an elderly bias in many, many countries operating
in that type of framework.
By the same token, one of the questions that I think was very real-
istically raised by AFGE is whether or not it is mandatory retirement
you want, or tough selection out at a given age. One implies tough
choices; the other implies arbitrariness. Which would you prefer?
Mr. HYDLE. We see mandatory retirement as part of the package of
attrition mechanisms or culling mechanisms which include. selection
out for substandard performance and for excessive time-in-class.
But people who came into the Foreign Service and have advanced
in the Service have done so in the' context of a system in which there
was mandatory retirement at 60 and other people retired and they were
able to move up. When it comes their turn to leave, it is their turn to
leave. But existing legislation and this draft both do provide, of
course, that if a person is a Presidential appointee or if the Secretary
otherwise determines that it is in the public interest, and we recom-
mended using the test of the needs of th9 Service, that individual can
stay onbeyond 60.
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Mr. LEACH. Did you or do you have an absolutely firm position on
whether or not you can accept the steps, or the grades and step pro-
posal, of the Administration versus your own?
Mr. HYDr.E. Our position as of about a week ago when we, or the
Governing Board was able to come to grips with this evolving situa-
tion is that at this point we favor the 12-grade, 10-step system parallel
to the Civil Service, which is consistent with the concept of compati-
bility and, I think, easier to reconcile with the whole concept of equal
pay for equal work. -
Since this position has just been established and we are about to be
talking to the OMB about it, it is probably too early to be talking about
fallback positions and what we would finally find palatable.
Mr. LEACH. In the drafting of the legislation, did you guys consult
at all with State Department management on the concept of a service
development officer?
Mr. HYDL.E. This is a recurrent theme that we have raised from time
to time in the past, and we testified on it as recently as May 2, I think,
before your subcommittee in discussing the united personnel system.
Mr. LEACH. One final question, just because it is of popular cur-
rency : Do you feel that we have an inadequate number of personnel
abroad?
Mr. HYDr,E. I think we feel in general that in the Department of
State, at least the responsibilities that have been placed on the For-
eign Service abroad have greatly increased over the last 20 years,
particularly in areas such as consular service for Americans overseas
or people who want to come here, or administrative service which the
Department provides for other agencies which are themselves prolif-
erating overseas. In AID there has been a great decrease in the num-
bers of people overseas due to ideas like OPRED and BALPA and
MODE, so you end up with an agency which everyone now says is too
much based in Washington and is not doing enough overseas where the
actual problems are.
So I think that is a rather long answer to your question, but our an-
swer is, there are not enough people serving overseas in the Foreign
Service to do the jobs that are required of us by the Nation.
Mr. LEACH. Let me end with one comment : I think you are exactly
right in stressing Foreign Service secretary and support personnel,
particularly secretary, and I am glad you raised that issue as strongly
as you did, because when we look at these issues, we sometimes lose
sight of that part of the Foreign Service.
Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Congressman Ireland.
Mr. IRELAND. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Earlier testimony at this meeting concerned discussion of whether
the Foreign Service could be handled just as easily as an overall part
of civil service, and I would like to review that and get your comment
in light of some comments you made. The scenario was that we could
have everybody in the civil. service, without a separate Foreign Serv-
ice; be they State Department people, Commerce, CIA, when they
went overseas they certainly responded to some qualification status,
but at the same time then became eligible for benefits in different
ground rules that were indicative of their service overseas.
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Let me add that also implied in that scenario was, should they stop
their tenure overseas they would then be like other civil servants serv-
ing domestically.
My question is, if you would address that, in two regards : First of
all, I am aware that your testimony is that they should be separate,
and this was separate. I refer to your comment at the very beginning
about the uniqueness, that you believe the Foreign Service is necessar-
ily unique and different from the civil service because it responds to
the Nation's need for qualified service available worldwide.
It would seem to me that the scenario I outlined and which was in the
previous testimony would also respond to that, and it would also re-
spond. to it not just in the State Department and AID but also for other
members of civil service going overseas.
So it would seem that your statement here only does a part of the
job for a small group of people. If your statement is true it should
be true for everybody going overseas and the other, regarding your
comment about a Foreign Staff Corps, and it would seem to me that if
the scenario I outlined was in the original testimony there would be no
need for that Foreign Staff Corps, simply because somebody then not
serving overseas coming back would regain their position in the civil
service.
Can you address that for me?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes, sir. The uniqueness of the Foreign Service that I
tried to explain is related to the career concept, the fact that, for
example, civil service rules do not permit transfer from a job to a job,
from one job to another, unless it is voluntary and often in connec-
tion with a promotion. We are transferred or reassigned as we call it
every couple of years or so to any position in the United States or over-
seas and the Service discipline requires us to accept these assignments.
In the foreign affairs agencies whose primary missions are over-
seas, that is the Department of State, AID, soon to be succeeded by
IDCA, and ICA, it is logical to have a Foreign Service that is avail-
able for worldwide assignment and must accept worldwide assign-
ment in the same way our military services do. Now in addition to
that of course it is necessary to have people in the other domestic
department and agencies of the Government who may be available
for specific overseas tours and there are provisions in this bill that do
speak about limited and temporary appointments of say one tour of
duty that might respond to a specific assignment overseas.
Mr. IRELAND. The man who goes overseas for Commerce, isn't he
just subject to the same hazards? Hasn't he got the same problems as
the one who goes overseas for AID?
Mr. HYDLE. Commerce is a special case.
Mr. IRELAND. Commerce or Agriculture or what not.
Those problems that you are addressing that are unique, are unique
for that guy too. Why should he be the same as the guy over there for
AID?
Mr. HYDLE. Commerce is a bad example, because the Foreign Serv-
ice overseas, how can we.say it, we
Mr. IRELAND. Address it from the standpoint of any American
civil servant overseas. Should he be treated the same as any other
American civil servant overseas?
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Mr. HYDLE. Foreign Service people are expected to spend their
entire career either overseas or in Washington, moving wherever the
needs of the Service require. A civil servant in a domestic agency may
only be required to serve one tour in a specific place overseas, but he is
not subject to the same career discipline.
There is also an important need which is fulfilled by the Foreign
Service personnel systems of the foreign affairs agencies more sub-
stantive in areas' background. That is people who are not only experts
on a specific technical subject but who are also experts on the country
they are serving in. That is the kind of special talents.
Mr. IRELAND. That is saying one special talent is better than another
special talent. The guy who goes over for Commerce may be a lot
more talented than the guy in the State Department or AID that
went over with a generality. That is saying one specialty is more
important than another.
Mr. HYDLE. We have not said one is better than another; we said
they are different.
Mr. STERN. Since I am a former commercial attache, I can respond
specifically. Most Commerce officers overseas are Foreign Service
officers. The exceptions to those are a few Commerce officers who on
an exchangd program serve a tour overseas, so they get an idea of the
overseas dimension because they have the domestic responsibility in
the United States. But one of the important things Lars has been
getting to, not all our service is in nice places like London and Paris
and Rome. We can get all the volunteers we want for that. It is when
we have to send people to Ouagadougou that we are not able to find
people willing to give up a good position to go to a. place like that.
We accept the ability or, rather, the obligation, to serve in a place
like Ouagadougou as much as a place like Rome. I have never served
in Western Europe. My service has been in the developing world.
I think the part and parcel of it is, we spend years developing ex-
pertise in two forms, substantive, certainly. I am an economic officer,
for example, but very definitely area and geographic. The person who
comes occasionally from the domestic side may bring very high tech-
nical knowledge, and there are fine people there, but they are not
necessarily the people who can relate that to the geographic, the area
of responsibility.
Mr. IRELAND. What I am trying to establish-both of you are
American civil servants overseas and we are not here to decide which
one of you is more important; you are Americans overseas, and why
should you have the same benefits?
Mr. STERN. But they do. In some cases they have better.
Mr. IRELAND. In that case, all we need is a civil service with an addi-
tional benefit for those serving overseas.
Mr. STERN. We look at it from the other point of view. When these
people come over, we give them Foreign Service commissions often
so during the specific period they do achieve the benefits. But we
would suggest that an officer or staff person that spends the better part
of his life accepting these assignments earns certain benefits such as
the earlier retirement; whereas, a person who comes from a domestic
agency serves one tour, perhaps two tours, overseas, does not earn that
specific benefit when he returns to the United States.
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Otherwise, we would have a situation, I think, where everybody
would want a tour overseas. That way, everybody gets the benefit of
age-50 retirement.
One of the objectives of this bill is to correct that anomaly and
clearly distinguish between those people who spend the bulk of their
lives overseas as opposed to those who put the bulk of their lives into
domestic service. I think it is more similar to the military than it is
to the civil service, and in many cases we have looked to the military
for analogies. Like them, it is discipline. We go where we are sent.
If I can quote from the farewell to the troops when Secretary Kis-
singer departed, the one point he made was, despite all the problems
he had with us-and he admitted he had some-the thing that struck
him, no matter how difficult an assignment, including those where
we brought the bodies of our people back, he never hag any problem
filling those slots afterward, and this is the kind of service we have
and which we want to preserve.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
First, let me explain where I am coming from. I feel, for all the
deficiencies one might find, that we have the finest Foreign Service
in the world, and for years-I believe the record will reflect-I have
been a friend of the Foreign Service. There are two or three things I
want to speak to that concern me a bit about your testimony.
First of all I hope you can come to a definitive position on the
legislation itself. While I understand the desire to achieve equal op-
portunity in our society, we are dealing with a conflict of that and
not anything simple. It is very hard to see how one can move from
where we are without such mechanisms as lateral entry, to where we
need to be in terms of opportunities for women and for minorities
when, at this point in history, for too many Americans, equal oppor-
tunity is still much like cotton candy, and the Government is the Na-
tion's largest employer.
Yet, if you look at the track record of the Government overall, as a
major employer we still have some problems in areas, so I have some
concerns about that problem.
Finally, I would like to ask a couple of questions about family mem-
bers. You say, rightly, that you have initiated and supported most of
the legislation in recent years to protect and enhance opportunities
for spouses and other family members for training, employment, and
career counseling. On the other hand, you express two areas of con-
cern, the first being that you say, "Unfortunately, recent emphasis on
the rights and needs of Foreign Service family members has in this
zero-based area of budgetary limit adversely affected staff opportunity
for training and assignment." Then you go on to express concern
about the Foreign Service. You ask for legislative history making
clear that training family members is in addition to, not instead of,
training members of the Service, making training for members of the
Service identical to that available to family members, and you go on
in that theme.
As you are aware, the idea of the Congress was to make available
for service all the many talented people who happen to be spouses or
family members with the idea of replacing foreign nationals, not our
people, for those persons.
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I would like the record to get very clear on that subject you are
not saying that you are not supportive of that idea, are you?
Mr. HYDLE. Absolutely not. We do support that idea, and what we
have said in our testimony is that we got.off the track a little bit in
abolishing Foreign Service career positions or leaving them vacant,
and then hiring family members on a part-time, temporary, intermit-
tent basis. There has been some abuse as we see it of the concept which
we strongly supported.
Mr. BUCHANAN. We have felt some frustration because we have a
really hard time getting the Department to do anything to imple-
ment the original idea which we had. We had thought that it would
make very good sense for some of these very bright, capable Ameri-
cans to replace foreign nationals, and we have had a hard time get-
ting off the ground on that subject.
Mr. HYDLE. Could I return to your comment on equal employment
opportunity?
We have supported equal employment opportunity within the For-
eign Service and we support remedies for individual situations in
which there has been past discrimination which, of course, is already
provided under law through the EEO complaint system.
Where we have had arguments with the Department of State it
has been over whether there should be programs which provide prefer-
ential treatment to people simply because they are members of pre-
viously disadvantaged groups at the expense of equal opportunity
for all.
I would like to ask my colleague, State Department representative,
Barbara Bodine, to comment further on that.
Ms. BODINE. We have absolutely no objection and firmly supported
lateral entry programs in EEO programs at the junior level.
What we are concerned about is not that anybody thinks-and
certainly not me-that women and minorities are not capable of
doing the job; but those candidates who come into this system are
fully capable of doing the job, the qualified candidates do exist,
that they are screened, the proper candidates are selected and
hired, that they are given the opportunities to develop their
talents and experience, and they can come up to par with some
other officers who have been in a little longer but they have not been
given a preferential status simply because they are lateral entry or
supply because they are women and minorities, that this type of
program by giving preferential treatment to a separate group deni-
grates to an extent those who have come in from the bottom and
worked their way up. It makes two separate classes of Foreign Serv-
ice officers; and I would add that within the regular Foreign Service
officers you also have women and minorities, so it is not a white male
versus women and minorities. It is very much a career and special-
privilege-class question.
Mr. BUCHANAN. OK, but we have a certain time for lag in that
women and minorities in only very recent years have been afforded
real equal opportunity in the Department of State and elsewhere.
So, you have a generation or half a generation of women and minori-
ties who never got a chance to get into the system. If you are a bright,
capable person and might have all sorts of wonderful talent and
might be a value to the country, and you could not get into the sys-
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156
tem at a lower level, and you are not in at a point in life where it
would be appropriate for you to enter it at a lower level, the only
method of entry at this point would be lateral entry.
Ms. BODINE. There are some very talented people who for one rea-
son or another did not choose to join the Foreign Service or were not
able to join the Foreign Service at lower ranks, and now want to
come in, and they do have talent` and experience we can use. We
fully support that program.
Mr. BUCHANAN. You are not saying the fact that a bright female
person-my friend to my right, suppose she were a person who had
all the capabilities but had not had the opportunity? The gentleman
sitting behind you might have equal capabilities, but also the op-
portunity, so, therefore, is an experienced officer with a track rec-
ord that is of value; but the reason she doesn't have that is because
she never got in the door in the first place. That is an inequity for
the Government to say he has ability and experience and from the
point of view of the value to the Government and functional point
of view he is of greater value than she.
Ms. BODINE. As I said, the lateral entry program is supposed to be
designed to bring in women and minorities who for one reason or
another did not, or could not, join the Department at the lower ranks
because of whatever reasons. It is supposed to also be hiring for func-
tional needs of the Service.
Now, let us assume you have a bright female who has been work-
ing in academia or journalism or something else and wants to come
in, and does have experience, the, background, and does have the
proper credentials to fill a functional need. That is part of what the
lateral entry program is set up to hire, and that is the kind of per-
son it should be hiring, and that is what we do support.
Now, with the background that I have-they will not have three
tours in the Foreign Service because they just joined, but they will
have other experience to bring to bear and other experience that can
be very useful.
I would also like to add that there should be equal opportunity in
getting the proper kinds of training and experience; but that is sepa-
rate and different from setting up criteria once they are in that keeps
them totally segregated for the rest of their careers.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have one more question.
One of my frustrations in dealing with equal employment oppor-
tunities in the Foreign Service is very similar to the frustrations in
our dealing with civil service on it. That is, women and minorities are
taking this test and are denied entry based on it. Even though the test
discriminates against the minorities and women we still hear that the
test is the way to go, without verifying those tests. I get a little upset
as I hear everybody defending that. If you went to Harvard, Prince-
ton, or Yale and wear a crewneck sweater, we obviously know you
are qualified. I don't tend to believe that and we have had fairly
devastating testimony in our own committee on that.
Let me move to another thing which goes along with what Congress-
man Ireland was talking about.
That is you were suggesting that the Presidential appointment of
Senior Foreign Service members in, AID would reduce political abuse.
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Do you know of political abuse in AID and how is Presidenital ap-
pointment of the people going to reduce that possibility?
Mr. HYDLE. What I said, Madam Chairwoman was-I did not mean
to link the two things. They were in successive sentences but not in-
tended to describe a causative relationship. I said for the first time
senior AID Foreign Service people would become, as members of the
Senior Foreign Services, Presidential appointees with an opportunity
to be promoted to highest rank now called Career Minister.
That is one thing. The other thing is that political abuse of the system
should be reduced by which we had in mind, for example, the 5-percent
limit on the numbers of noncareer appointees in the Senior Foreign
Service replacing the-I believe you called it the AD-administra-
tively determined-appointment authority that exists under the cur-
rent Foreign Assistance Act.
Mrs. SCIIROEDER. You are against the 5 percent, you would have
zero percent?
Mr. HYDLE. We favor the 5 percent.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Rather than 10 percent?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you are not linking political abuse to Presi-
dential appointment?
Mr. HYDLE. Not at all.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. To get back to the other issue, do you have any rea-
son you could offer as to why women and minorities have done so poorly
in entering into Foreign Service.
Ms. BODINE. On the women I am not entirely sure we are doing that
poorly.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. They certainly have in the past.
Ms. BonINE. They have in the past. To a certain extent there have
been changes. Some of it is social. You have greater numbers of women
going into the kinds of discipline that prepare you for the written
exam. You have greater number of women who are thinking about the
Foreign Service as a career. You have changing family patterns and
all of this. With the abolition of the law on married couples you have
a lot of wives coming back in and a lot of wives taking the exam, once
their husbands are already in or couples taking it together, so with the
social changes you have a great many more women taking the exam
and passing the exam.
The last couple of classes-and I can't give a firm statistic, have
been almost 50-percent women. So the women are doing much better.
They have also changed the exam. First the written exam has been
changed and they have been trying to get out some of the biases. Sec-
ond there is now a group dynamics exercise where a woman or any of
the candidates are able to show their personal ability rather than just
something that is specific in a written exam. And so they have been
doing far better and they have been coming in in greater numbers.
Mr. HYDLE. I believe the recent statistics indicate that among women
who take the Foreign Service exam they pass in approximately the
same proportions as men.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I wanted to ask you some questions about your testi-
mony on compensation. It seems to me a lot of what a Foreign Service
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officer does in a foreign country is gain contacts and so forth. And yet
you are asking for both premium pay and a special allowance for ex-
cessive hours. I want to know when the Foreign Service officer is on
duty and when he or she is not on duty? Would you.consider cocktail
receptions being on duty? Do you have guidelines for the committee
if we really take into account these different proposals?
Mr. HYDLE. I believe you are thinking of our testimony on page 5.
The repeal of the ban on premium pay for FSO's and FSIO's simply
refers to the action that went into effect last October which says that
FSO's and FSIO's cannot earn overtime or compensatory time or
night, Sunday, or holiday differential on the same basis as people in
other Foreign Service categories. That is what we have opposed.
We believe that the Subcommittee on International Operations'
heart is with us on this, but they were unsuccessful in preventing that
from going into effect. We have also suggested as a separate idea that
the existing special allowance, or as we would call it, special differen-
tial, would be used to compensate especially communicators and secre-
taries who may not actually be on duty but who are on call by their
phones. They can't go anywhere because they might be called to go on
duty and they are severely restricted. If they actually have to go in on
duty, then this category of people will receive overtime or compensa-
tory pay.
But we believe there should be some compensation for the hours
spent hanging around the phone at home. We don't claim you should
pay a person the full hour's pay for a full hour hanging around the
phone, but we would suggest the use of the special allowance concept,
that if a certain job requires a certain amount of that, there is a way
of compensating those people for the hours of restriction on their free
time.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You heard testimony from the prior group about
the grievance problem. You are speaking in favor of expanding the
union and yet, if under this bill only the union can trigger the griev-
ance procedure, it is conceivable the. union will be representing people
on both sides of the argument or dispute. How do you recommend
we are going to work out that conflict of interest?
I come to this from the private labor law sector, and I really don't
comprehend why you are asking for that.
Mr. HYDLE. Madam Chairwoman, in our testimony on pages 11 and
12, we emphasize we have not sought the monopoly which the legis-
lation would give, the exclusive representative over grievance repre-
sentation and over access to the Foreign Service Grievance Board.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So you would want the grievance section changed
so it would not be the union only triggering it?
Mr. HYDLE. Yes ; and we made that suggestion in the detailed sec-
tion-by-section analysis. What we do seek, what we don't have now,
is the right to be present during grievance proceedings, individual
grievance proceedings, in order to make sure that these do not evolve
in ways that are contrary to the interests of the whole bargaining unit,
or the Grievance Board does not make an interpretation of a regu-
lation which is contrary to the meaning that we attach to the agree-
ment that produced the regulation.
That is all we are asking.
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As far as representing both the supervisor and the grievant, this
does not arise because it is the grievant who has a grievance against the
department or agency, not against an individual supervisor, and it
is not up to us to defend a supervisor against a criticism of him or her
by a grievant.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Not necessarily. It seems to me if you are repre-
senting both top level Foreign Service officers and also low level
communicators, it is very conceivable you could get into a conflict.
MS. WAELDER. If I could speak to this issue as well. The rank-
in-person system of Foreign Service sets up a system by which persons
move in and out of positions which may be in the bargaining unit in
one tour of duty and out of the bargaining unit on another tour of
duty, and the basic uniformity of personnel policies worldwide and
applicable to everybody makes this kind of dichotomy between a super-
visor and supervised employee that is typical elsewhere in labor rela-
tions less a feature of the Foreign Service system. It is equally possible
a senior officer in an overseas post is going to have a dispute with the
Department of State concerning how much weight he was allowed to
ship of his household effects, and the officer responsible for that at the
overseas post may be a junior administrative officer but it is his respon-
sibility to interpret the administrative provisions. So the supervisor-
supervisee relationship is not so integral a part of the labor relations.
What is more a part of our labor relations system is the uniform
application of Foreign Service rep, lations worldwide, and these regu-
lations, these policies, create the same kinds of difficulties for all of
our employees serving overseas, whether they may be junior or senior.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I hear what you are saying, I am not sure it is not
just rhetoric. It is kind of like when we got into the question of
picketing with the other group, who is the employer? It is always
somewhere else. We are just administering and it is all the trickle-
down type of thing. I feel like we are trying to nail Jello to the wall.
We are supposed to be putting together a process that is going to work
and we have to have some concrete definition of who represents whom
and what triggers what and how you avoid conflict of interest and
who is really involved in implementation of it and who can be held
to task for different things.
And I am not sure we are getting guidance on that.
Ms. WAELDER. May I make two other points? I believe you stated
a moment ago we were seeking to expand the bargaining unit. That
is not correct, Madam Chairwoman. We are seeking to maintain the
bargaining unit that has worked successfully for us since 1973. What
we are seeking to do is keep the bargaining unit that has been in opera-
tion for all these years. We are not seeking to expand it. It is man-
agement that is seeking to bring it back in. We are seeking precisely
the same bargaining unit that has been in effect and has worked for
6 years now in all. of the foreis-n affairs agencies.
Mr. HYDLE. During which we have had the grievance procedures
that would be substantially reenacted in chapter 11.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It seems to me there is a logical reason why man-
agement has gone in that direction. Maybe it is because of the
grievance procedure conflict they project.
Mr. HYDE. If I can be allowed to speculate, it is simply that man-
agement, in order to get an administration position, has had to agree
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with some of the people at the OPM who think in terms of title VII
bargaining units. The position that has come out in the bill on the
bargaining unit is a compromise between OPM and the Department
of State.
Ms. WAELDER. You also spoke of conflict of interest. Both the exist-
ing Executive order and chapter 10 in the new bill do provide that
any individual who has conflict of interest or apparent conflict of
interest with respect to his official duties and his participation as the
exclusive representative, may not participate on such an issue.
This clause we have used from time to time when an officer who may
have had a role in personnel management on a prior assignment, on
his subsequent assignment comes back into the bargaining unit and
has taken an active role in the association. And we are conscious of'
the responsibility of officers to the Department of State.
Institutionally, this conflict of interest provision is one that has
protected the system well and would continue to do so.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I understand how that works but it still seems
there is a broader application of where it comes. Let me ask one more
question : Do you also wish to be present at grievance procedures if
the employee does not want you there? Is that what you are also
asking, because you want to be there not to protect the employee but
to safeguard the interpretation of rules?
MS. WAELDER. We seek to be there such that we may represent our
interest if need be. There have been occasions when interpretations
of agreements between the Agency and the exclusive bargaining repre-
sentative have been at issue in an individual grievance hearing. We
seek to be able to know and to put in our voice on issues that may effect
the rest of our bargaining unit.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So you would then request to be there whether or
not the employee wanted that?
Let me also ask you how you justify preserving Foreign Service
retirement benefits for domestic-only Foreign Service employees who
have never gone abroad?
Mr. HYDLE. That was difficult, Madam Chairwoman. I think we con-
cluded that it had been a mistake several years ago to bring into the
Foreign Service people who really had no intention of going overseas,
for whom there are actually no jobs overseas, but some of them came in
with some understanding or promises in that connection and our con-
clusion was that it would be the best way to reestablish a clean distinc-
tion between Foreign Service people who are worldwide available and
assignable, and other peonle who can serve well in the foreign affairs
agencies but only in Washington.
The employee could either take the Foreign Service approach or
civil service approach, each of which has some advantages and some
disadvantages from the individual employee's point of view.
I might say briefly the ICA-AFGE agreement which dQalt with
this problem and which is referred to in, I think, 2103 or so, was a good
agreement at the time, and had we not had this bill come up, we might
well have taken the same approach they did, but now that the bill has
arisen we think within the context of comprehensive legislation this
is the best approach.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is how you justify negating their contract?
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Mr. HYDLE. It looks as if their contract-if that is what it is-is
going to be superseded after the end of the contract period.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think they testified it was open ended.
Mr. HYDLE. It is open ended in the sense their people can remain
within the Foreign Service without having to go overseas, as I under-
stand it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Does anyone else have any further questions? I
think I will proceed to put the rest of mine in the record.
Mr. STERN. May I just comment on something you said. Before we
got into this particular discussion you referred to the Foreign Service
work overseas being mostly contact and I thought-
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I did not mean to say mostly. I said I think that is
a large part of it.
Mr. STERN. It certainly is but these contacts are not an end in itself
and it struck me the way the record might read it would tend to read
like the contact work was the reason we were there rather than it was
the analysis of what we would learn from our contacts. One of the
problems we have in addition to the hours we spent outside of the
office, with the cocktail parties and what-have-you, we tend to spend
an inordinate amount of time in the office, well beyond 40 hours, and
it tends to be an accepted thing that you have a real good bargain in
the Foreign Service.
An officer can work 60 or 70 hours a week and he is not entitled to
anything, and this is a good excuse not to hire more people. This is the
way it has been working. All of us find the phone calls come at 6 o'clock
and 6:30 in the evening to our desk even though normal duty hours
are to 5 :30, and a good portion of the Department is in every Saturday
or at every Embassy because it is getting to be expected of us.
I think this was one of the points we needed to have made and I am
sorry I forget the exact section-412 was it-that we sought to have
repealed.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So you would consider anything over 40 hours over-
time in the office?
Mr. HYDLE. If that section were repealed, then we would be back in
the same status as other civil servants and Foreign Service personnel
categories with respect to premium pay including overtime, compensa-
tory time, night differentials, Sunday differential, and the ability to
waive those rights in order to participate in flexitime experiments and
other innovations.
Ms. WAELDER. If I may pick up, this means anybody paid less than
the level of GS-10, step 10, would on application'
pplication be entitled to over-
time like all other overtime employees, and anybody who earned more
than that could put in for compensatory time. It is those provisions
which are not applicable to Foreign Service officers but are applicable
to all other civil servants and to all other Foreign Service pay
categories.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If there are no further questions, I think we will
hold the record open for a while for more questions, and at this point
I think we will adjourn the hearing.
Thank you very much for appearing.
[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees convened at 9:35 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn
House Office Building, Hon. Dante B. Fascell (chairman of the Sub-
committee on International Operations) presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. Our subcommittees meet this morning to continue our
hearings on the Foreign Service personnel reform bill and we have
again with us this morning Ben Read, Under Secretary of State for
Management, accompanied by Director General of the Foreign Serv-
Barnes, and James Michel, Deputy Legal Adviser.
ice, in
We want to pick up where we stopped last time during our section-
by-section discussion of the bill. We had stopped on page 18 at section
321. In the meantime all of us have had an opportunity to get better
educated on the bill, having heard from AFGE. This will give us the
opportunity to pursue some of their concerns as we go along.
So let's start with section 321 with the fundamental question, subject
to whatever my colleagues desire to ask at any point : Is this a rewrite
of existing law, or is there something new in it; if so, what is it exactly
that is new and why have changes been made?
STATEMENT OF HON. BEN H. READ, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR MANAGEMENT
Mr. READ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are ready to proceed accordingly. I might mention that we have
prepared and will be submitting by the deadline you suggested, tomor-
row, the written answers to 120 or 140 separate questions and I think
that that will be fully responsive to the inquiries you made for the
record and during the first hearings.' All but three or four answers
have been prepared, and we will be prepared to discuss them at any
time. I am delighted to proceed on this section-by-section basis.
I believe we had just completed the discussion of 321 and I will ask
Jim Michel to pick up there if that is agreeable with you.
The questions and answers referred to are contained in appendix 26.
(163)
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Mr. FASCELL. Yes, sir.
Mr. MICHEL.. Section 322 on career appointments
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Can I ask you again : You have the 5 percent in
there rather than the 10 percent as in the civil service?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is there any real reason why you changed that from
the Civil Service Reform Act?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. The Civil Service Reform Act's 10 percent, as we
understand it, reflects the facts as they exist within the civil service;
within the civil service there are about 10 percent noncareer personnel
at the senior levels. In the Foreign Service it is about 5 percent, actu-
ally a little less than 5 percent, noncareer personnel at the senior levels.
For the same reason that the Civil Service Reform Act uses 10 per-
cent, we have used 5 percent. We do not want to change what is per-
missible in the way of political or noncareer appointments at the senior
levels.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. MICHEL. Should I proceed?
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 322 on career appointments brings together
about five different provisions of the existing law and provides a sin-
gle process for acquiring tenure in the Foreign Service. The procedure
of a limited appointment during probation is applicable now to For-
eign Service officer candidates and to the Foreign Service Reserve offi-
cers. The law just provides with respect to Foreign Service staff and to
other personnel that the Secretary may prescribe regulations, includ-
ing provisions for probationary periods. So this is essentially a codifi-
cation of existing law and makes the same procedure apply to all the
different categories.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, 'may I ask a question?
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I would like to know more about the boards. Are
you going to put more in the language about the tenure boards? Is this
entirely or primarily career people? Is there an appeal from the
board's decision? Will there be standards? How is the selection going
to be made? What are the guidelines? In other words, is there some-
thing more concrete there?
Mr. MICHEL. Typically the decision about whether to grant tenure
to a probationary employee is a management decision and it is not
something that is the subject of the kind of appeal rights that would
exist for an employee who has tenure if the proposal is to separate the
employee involuntarily.
The tenure board does operate, and would continue to operate, under
precepts that are worked out with the exclusive representative of the
employees. There is no appellate structure, but there is a negotiation
that leads to the guidelines that are applied by the board.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What about the performance standards?
Mr. MICHEL. The same performance evaluation is done on the can-
didate as is done on any other officer or employee in the Foreign Serv-
ice. The individual does have the right to bring a grievance if he or
she believes there is anything in the performance file that is unfair
and prejudices the opportunity to acquire tenure.
1 James H. Michel, Deputy Legal Adviser, Department of State.
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Mr. READ. Can I add a footnote there. What we are doing here is
extending the tenure process for career status in the Foreign Service.
At present, tenure is granted too casually and we wish to give real
meaning to this action. I think that we grant tenure more casually for
non-Foreign Service officers than is done in most other organizations.
I think this will help professionalize the Foreign Service and make a
real contribution.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think that is right. Will it enable the same rights
to tenure; will there be concrete guidelines?
Mr. READ. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Or will it go the "Old Boys" network? I am pleased
to hear you talk about that.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me pursue something on that section right there.
As I understand it, with just a cursory examination of this matter,
what you have eliminated is the statutory probationary period and left
it to some board determinations?
Mr. MICHEL. No; the probationary period for Foreign Service offi-
cer candidates has been 48 months plus an additional 12, or 5 years.
Mr. FASCELL. Does that still remain in the law?
Mr. MICHEL. That remains in the law because the limited appoint-
ment cannot exceed 5 years. That is dealt with in section 331 of the bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, let me see.
Mr. MICHEL. When we say a limited appointment in 322, you have
to read that with 331 which says a limited appointment may in no
event exceed 5 years.
Mr. FASCELL. What does that mean? At the end of 5 years under
limited appointments he is either in or that means he has tenure or
he is out?
Mr. MICHEL. Or he is out.
Mr. FASCELL. Under the present system you say that is a ministerial
function both for service and nonservice people?
Mr. MICHEL. At the present time this procedure contemplated in
322 applies to Foreign Service officer candidates and it is provided for
by section 516 of the Foreign Service Act only.
Mr. FASCELL. So then 516(c), which is that last paragraph there, in
its entirety remains as is?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 516(c) would be repealed if we borrow from
516(c) to get the procedure that is reflected in new section 522.
Mr. FASCELL. As read in 331.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. We have now gone full circle. I thought that is what
you did ; therefore, I will restate the proposition.
You have a 5 -year limitation which was laid down in section 331.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. So that changes the system that you have in 516(c).
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Now it begins to read clearly.
The other thing that is changed is that now you are going to make
tenure a board process.
Mr. MICHEL. Throughout the ranks of the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. All candidates?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Service and nonservice or whatever it is.
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Now that is going to be a board process in the same fashion as up-
ward mobility is a board process, isthat correct? I mean the determi-
nation of tenure at a given period of time.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Now how is the given period of time determined?
When does the board act? What is the trigger?
Mr. MICHEL. They will look at the performance file.
Mr. FASCELL. I know, but when? Every 6 months? Mr. MICHEL. I believe it is annually and they may decide to grant
tenure after 2 years or after 3 years or after 4 years.
Mr. FASCELL. Is that based on rule, regulations, or precedent?
Mr. BARNES. It is called a Commissioning and Tenure Board.
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me?
Mr. BARNES. This particular board has the opportunity to review,
by regulation, those candidates who have been in the service for 2
years. They have to make their decision though before 4 years have
expired and I expect that for the other categories we would set compa-
rable rules. They would vary probably depending on the category.
Mr. FASCELL. You mean that as a newcomer, I come in on a proba-
tionary basis, and nothing happens to me for as long as 4 years?
Mr. BARNES. That is right. '
Mr. FASCELL. But something could happen to me any time after 2?
Mr. BARNES. You could get your tenure and promotion after 2.
Mr. FASCELL. But I might not?
Mr. BARNES. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. So I could be promoted but I would not have any ten-
ure under the present system for at least 2 years.
Mr. BARNES. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Are those by regulations?
Mr. BARNES. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Is that going to be the same as far as present thinking
is concerned with respect to the application of 332 and 331?
Mr. BARNES. As I indicated, I think our tentative thinking depends
on the category.
Mr. MICHEL. You don't need the same length of time to make that
decision for all occupational groups. It is thought that for the For-
eign Service officer it is desirable to have a couple of tours of duty,
a couple of different supervisors before you make that judgment. On
the other hand, let's say that you have somebody who is a clerk in the
mail room. You don't need 4 years to decide, yes, this is a good clerk
and we will grant this person tenure.,
Mr. FASCELL. OK. .
Any other questions on that?
Let's go to the next section.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 323 establishes a -normal maximum entry level
for Foreign Service officer candidates. The class 4 referred to in the
text of the bill is intended to correspond roughly to class 6 in the pres-
ent Foreign Service officer salary structure. The present normal entry
level is at class 7 and this section would provide a somewhat broader
band for the entry level, taking into account the broader range of can-
didates we are now getting in terms of both age and education and
experience.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. May I ask a question at this point?
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Is this the lateral entry issue?
Mr. MICHEL. To enter above class 4 would be a lateral entry. This is
provided for in these two paragraphs indicating that in an individual
case, someone could be brought in at a higher level on the basis of a
determination if they have the qualifications and experience for which
there is a need in the Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We had some negative testimony on Monday, as I
recall, on lateral entry from AFSA.
Is this basically a codification of the program as it is now operating
or are there changes in it?
Mr. MICHEL. We have not retained some of the rigidities which make
a distinction between people over 30 and under 30, and who have 3
years of Government service or 4 years of Government service, before
they come in through lateral entry. Those did not seem appropriate to
carry forward.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But other than that, it is the same?
Mr. MICHEL. It is the same.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. There is no difference.
All right. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Any other questions on section 323 ?
If not, let's go to section 324.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 324 concerns the recall and reappointment of
career personnel. This is basically a codification of the present section
520 of the 1946 act. The section permits a retired member of the For-
eign Service to be recalled and permits a former member who has
resigned to be reappointed without having to go through the candidate
process that we described.
The difference is that the language is generalized. Whereas the pres-
ent law talks about recall of a Foreign Service officer only, this sec-
tion talks about recall of a "member" of the Foreign Service. It would
apply to all categories of personnel.
Mr. FASCELL. Any questions on that section?
Mr. Derwinski.
Mr. DERwINsKI. Mr. Chairman.
The provision there on length of service by a recalled member be-
yond mandatory retirement has been limited to 5 years. How would
that affect a unique case such as you have with Elsworth Bunker who,
if I understand correctly, has been beyond the retirement age for 15
years?
Mr. MICHEL. He was not recalled, but appointed by the President.
Mr. DERWINSKI. So in this section you are dealing with career
personnel not subject to Presidential appointment and Senate
confirmation?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. DERWINSKI. This restricts though, in part, the 5-year limitation?
Mr. MICHEL. The President can appoint to a constitutional office or
statutory office, with Senate advice and consent, anyone he pleases
and there is no age limitation and none intended by this bill.
Mr. DERWINsKI. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Let's take the next section which we
partially discussed.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 331 establishes a 5-year maximum for limited
appointments in the Service. This is consistent with the existing law
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that applies to Foreign Service Reserve officers and extends the 5-year
rule to all categories of personnel. At present, there is no such thin
as a limited Foreign Service officer. Limited appointments in the Stag
Corps are authorized, but the time period is-set by regulation and is
not specified in law.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, let me see if we are all using the same words.
Noncareer-no tenure-is that what that means?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. "Other limited appointments in the Service"
means
Mr. MICHEL. Well, there are two kinds of situations in addition to
career candidates in which you use the limited appointment. One is to
bring someone in where there is a temporary need for that individual.
They come into the Government; they work for a few years; and they
leave. The other kind of a situation we would not want to call non-
career. It is when somebody who is a career employee in some other
agency goes into the Foreign Service on a limited basis and then re-
turns to their career position in the civil service. This is also dealt with
in the following section, section 332, on reemployment rights.
Mr. FASCELL. So "other limited appointments" means those cate-
gories which you just described.
Mr. MICHEL. These are career people but they are not career Foreign
Service people.
Mr. FASCELL. And a time limited appointment means what?
Mr. MICHEL. A limited appointment.
Mr. FASCELL. What does "time" mean?
Mr. MICHEL. The word "time" in line 18 may be redundant.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, is a time limited appointment a temporary ap-
pointment always and is a temporary appointment always a* time
limited appointment?
Mr. MICHEL. No. A limited appointment may be for any length of
time up to a maximum of 5 years.
Mr. FASCELL. So a limited appointment has a different connotation
although it may be temporary up to 5 years? It is not temporary at all.
Mr. MICHEL. We use that for 1 year or less because such appoint-
ments are treated differently in terms of leave eligibility and retire-
ment plan.
Mr. FASCELL. Now do you want to restate that?
Mr. MICHEL. All right. If someone is employed in the Government
for less than 1 year, they don't go into the civil service retirement sys-
tem; they are covered by social security.
Mr. FASCELL. Now that is a temporary appointment?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. It also happens to be a time limited appointment?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, the sentence reads "a time limited appointment
in the Service for not to exceed 1 year shall be a temporary appoint-
ment." The sentence is in there simply for administrative convenience
so that there is a statutory basis for designating certain limited ap-
pointments as "temporary."
Mr. FASCELL. Anything under 5 years is going to be temporary.
Mr. MICHEL. Under 1 year.
Mr. FASCELL. Clearly designated by statute.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, and that identifies those people who are not in
civil service retirement or
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Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me. I am not trying to nitpick but why couldn't
that read, "any appointment in the Service for not to exceed 1 year
shall be a temporary appointment"? What is the difference between
that and what you have?
Mr. MICHEL. The only difference is that we would like to regard the
temporary appointment as a subcategory of limited because there are
some references to limited appointment in other places in the bill which
are meant to include the temporary appointment.
Mr. FASCELL. A limited appointment then is anything under 5
years?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right, including a temporary appointment.
Mr. FASCELL. But a temporary assignment is anything under 1 year.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. They are both time limited.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. By statute.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Now are there any regulations which are in effect
which need to be understood for definitional or clarification purposes?
Mr. MICHEL. As I indicated earlier, we would have regulations im-
plementing the leave act and the retirement laws.
Mr. FASCELL. To discover what my benefits as the employee under
either one of those categories to which this section would apply, which
is anything under 5 years, I would have to look at regulations?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, there would be implementing regulations but the
essential difference between other limited appointments and the tem-
porary is that if you are less than a year, temporary, you are under
social security rather than a Government retirement plan and you
don't earn leave.
Mr. FASCELL. And all of that is fixed by regulation?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, it is fixed by other laws which are implemented
by regulation-by the leave act and the retirement law.
Mr. FASCELL. I see.
Mr. MICHEL. This is essentially a cross-reference.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Then these time periods were made keeping
in mind requirements of other laws?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. As far as benefits are concerned.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. We are not at cross purposes?
Mr. MICHEL. No, we are not.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, the time periods in section 331 have
that in mind?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. OK. That clarifies it for me. Thank you.
Any other questions on section 331?
If not, we will go to section 332.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 332 concerns reemployment rights of a career
Federal employee who accepts a limited appointment in the Foreign
Service with the consent of his or her agency. Such an employee is en-
titled, as under present law, to be reemployed in their former position
or an equivalent position at the expiration of their limited Foreign
Service appointment.
Mr. FASCELL. Is that the present law?
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Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir. There is present law with respect to Foreign
Service Reserve officers. This broadens this so that other personnel
would also have the rights that are contained in the present law.
Mr. FASCELL. When you say "other personnel," does that mean all
other personnel or some other personnel?
Mr. MICHEL. All other personnel. We have tried to avoid these
distinctions by which they are treated differently. We think it is
perhaps-
Mr. FASCELL. One of the things you are trying to do is to treat all
employees the same as far as the application of law is concerned.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right. At present if someone comes into the
Foreign Service for a limited appointment on the Foreign Service
Staff Corps, they would not have statutory reemployment rights. If
they came in as a Foreign Service Reserve officer, they would have.
We generalize this and say they both have statutory reemployment
rights.
V. FASCELL. And that is what this section does?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Is this the origination of the so-called parachute con-
cept that is bugging you with respect to the Senior Foreign Service?
Mr. MICHEL. No, this is when somebody moves from their normal
civil service job to work for somebody else for a limited time in the
Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that. That raises the issue about moving
up and out and then deciding you either can't cut the mustard or
for some other reason a change is made. The question then remains
whether you should go back to your old position and still be in the
Foreign Service.
Now at least that is the way I understand the problem.
How does the administration address the problem in this bill? For
example, what happens if someone goes into the Senior Foreign Serv-
ice and stays for a number of years, but then for some reason doesn't
work out-or would the circumstances be different?
Mr. MICHEL. We think there are very different circumstances.
Mr. FASCELL. That individual either stays in or whatever.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. The civil service employee in grade 15 has a
vested right in the particular position held by that individual. They
are induced to go into the Senior Executive Service and accept the
risks and benefits of that Senior Executive Service, and one of the
things that is offered as an inducement to leave the security of that
GS-15 position is a parachute clause.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, you can go back to the 15 percent
if he does not cut it.
Mr. MICHEL. If he does not make it in the Senior Executive Service.
Now the class 3 Foreign Service officer is subject to selection out for
time-in-class or for low ranking already, before going up into the
senior ranks.
Mr. FASCELL. So if you parachute him back it would be going back-
ward trying to solve a problem that you have been trying to solve? .
Mr. MICHEL. That is right. We think we are starting from a very
different beginning in creating the Senior Foreign Service and ap-
plying that to an already existing up or out rank-in-person system.
Mr. FASCELL. So if you had a parachute clause applied to the Senior
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Foreign Service, in effect what you would be doing would be limiting
the selection-out process.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes; we would be recreating the congestion at an-
other level. We would be moving the problem instead of solving
the problem.
Mr. FASCELL. So basically the response which has been made by the
organizations who advocate that parachute clause is that the situation
is not the same, that they are not analogous.
Mr. MICHEL. We believe it is a misplaced analogy.
Mr. FASCELL. Not only is the problem different but the history is
different?
Mr. MICHEL. That is true.
Mr. FASCELL. All right.
Any other questions on that?
Mr. BUCHANAN. I guess I would rather see civil service go toward
Foreign Service rather than vice versa.
Mr. FASCELL. I think the whole process contemplates a sensible
selection-out process predicated on production responsibility and some
reasonable balance between that and the old system.
Mr. MICHEL. I might add that from the conversations I have had
with the members of the career Foreign Service my impression is
that there is general support for the preservation of selection out.
Mr. FASCELL. You testified to that. AFSA testified to that but the
others are still holding out for the parachute clause. It seems to me to
be reasonable to sav that the situations are different.
Mr. MICHEL. Well, I think they are.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's take section 333.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 333 is another consolidation of several provi-
sions of law concerning employment of family members.
Mr. FASCELL. Is there anything new in it?
Mr. MICHEL. I don't think there is anything new in subsection (a).
It is all there in present law now but it is pulled together. At present,
there is a separate law dealing with employment in the foreign national
positions.
Mr. FASCELL. Jim, when you say it is pulled together, what does that
mean?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, that means that we have now a section 401 of the
State authorization bill of last year that said we should try to hire
family members in vacant foreign national positions and convert them
for use by American family members.
Mr. FASCELL. I remember that, our subcommittee wrote that in.
Now what other sections do you pull in?
Mr. MICHEL. There was a separate section that was enacted in the
same bill that said that we should give equal consideration to family
members for filling American positions and that was then provided
directly in this section.
Mr. FASCELL. So you consolidated 431 and 413 with no substantive
change?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Simply grammatical changes.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. Then we built in the authorization to use a local
compensation plan or an American salary schedule as may be appro-
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priated in the circumstances of the case which is now in section 444 of
the Foreign Service Act.
Mr. FASCELL. Oh, I see. That is back on the next page.
So what you have done is pulled those three sections together.
Mr. MICHEL. Well, the provision on the next page in present 444(d)
concerns the regulations which we have built in here, too.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, let me see if I understand you then. Starting on
line 20 on page 21, is that all new?
Mr. MICHEL. No. If you look on page 29, the bottom of page 28 and
the top of page 29 on the facing page, you will see the authority in
present law for local compensation plans for alien employees.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 417, you mean? Oh, I see. I am sorry. Section
451.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. It is on the facing page starting at the bottom of
page 28 showing the 1946 act and then going up to the top of the page
facing 29. It says that "these compensation plans are for employees
and for U.S. citizens employed abroad who are family members of
personnel." So we have taken that authority and moved it or cross
referenced it back in section 333.
Mr. FASCELL. And that does not change the substantive application
of that section?
Mr. MICHEL. No; that is only an additional source for it.
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I just wanted to ask: When the Secretary puts to-
gether regulations prescribing guidelines, will that include regulations
on which pay scale applies or are there regulations on which pay scale
applies?
In other words, you give equal consideration to employing qualified
family members and then the Secretary is going to put together the
guidelines.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. I am wondering which pay scale applies and then how
you give equal consideration if you have different pay scales applying
to different kinds of applicants.
Mr. MICHEL. Not to different kinds of applicants. I think the prin-
cipal criterion will be how the job is classified. If you have a job that is
normally filled by a foreign national, and that job becomes vacant
when there is a family member at post who can perform that job, this
section says you will give equal consideration to the employment of
that family member instead of hiring another foreign national.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And you would use the foreign national pay scale?
Mr. MICHEL. In that case.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I see. So equal consideration then means that you
are strictly looking at the applicant's qualification?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Then the regulations will, on the pay issue, be that
once the job is classified as a foreign national job there will be equal
consideration between foreign nationals and family members but the
pay scale will be the same as it was ?
Mr. MICHEL. We are still pretty early in the pilot program with
this fairly recent authority. That program has been expanded, but I
think we really need to get more experience before we can say defi-
nitely what the regulations will provide in detail.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am.sure you and'AFSA have expressed some concerns about this
section in which the members of the subcommittee have a rather active
interest, I must say.
What other, kinds of jobs do you envision that might be filled by
them under this-section ?
Mr. BARNES. Well, in terms of our present practices, there are jobs
which are now filled by family members.
Mr. FASCELL. Through the normal process.
Mr. BARNES. Yes, there are actually several categories. We treat
those employed full time as we would any other employee.
Then there is a category of people we would employ on a temporary
basis and in a type of position we call a temporary or intermittent
position and these could be a great variety of jobs-jobs that are ordi-
narily filled by Americans.
Mr. FASCELL. That is the 5 years or less category? One year or less?
Mr. BARNES. I was hestitant when I used the word "temporary" be-
cause I was afraid we might get back to that. point.
Mr. FASCELL. There is a great necessity for us to be absolutely clear
when we are describing something on the record. That is the only rea-
son I keep going back.
Mr. BARNES. I understand. I was not using it as in the section we pre-
viously discussed. We have a category of employment of people where
we do not need their services full time. It is temporary in that sense,
not full time. We do now employ family members in such, capacities.
Mr. FASCELL. You mean part time?
Mr. BARNES. Part-time intermittent and temporary. That is one con-
cept together.
Mr. FASCELL. How about intermittent employees? Do you have those
kinds, too?
Mr. BARNES. Yes, and we now employ people in such jobs which
could be of great variety.
Mr. BUCHANAN. You are aware of the concern that was expressed
of using family members to replace Foreign Service officers in slots
that previously had been classified as regular Foreign Service
positions?
Mr. BARNES. No, we are not contemplating that. We use these part-
time, intermittent, temporary appointments when we have a gap be-
tween the departure of one and the arrival of another regular em-
ployee. We would use that authority.
Mr. BucHANAN. One more word on the other side of the coin. We
have been through this exercise several times but this program really
is not off the ground in my judgment and understanding. I hope that
the presence of this section in the proposed law, along with the lan-
guage under the present law, really means that you are going to aggres-
sively pursue this matter.
Mr. READ. We will, Mr. Buchanan. I found subsequent to the last
hearing that the pilot program really had been going along at an al-
most nonexistent level. There were actually only two placements from
when it was instituted in February or March until through June. We
have now made it worldwide, and I do hope we will have some signifi-
cant results to post you on by the end of the fiscal year.
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Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Mr. BARNES. We have made this program available on a worldwide
basis.
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder has another question on this problem.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I just wanted to ask if you have provisions to lo-
cate jobs for spouses of Foreign Service officers in Washington when
the spouses are rotated back here.
Mr. BARNES. You are talking of the sorts of spouses who are not reg-
ular members of the Foreign Service?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is correct. I understand what you are trying
in the foreign areas. My question is : Once they come back here, do you
help them? Is there any kind of counseling or help for spouses to get
back into the mainstream here?
Mr. BARNES. Yes. We mentioned the Family Liaison Office which
we set up about a year and a half ago and its function, among oth-
ers, is to help the transition in this direction as well as the transition
in the other direction.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. BUCHANAN. One more question.
Are there any positions where there would be a retirement benefit
aspect of employment or would all the categories be such that there
would not be?
Mr. MICHEL. There would be either Social Security if they are
less than a year or civil service retirement system if they are
Mr. FASCELL. If they qualified for a retirement system.
Mr. MICHEL. That is the function of the retirement laws.
One more point if I may, Mr. Buchanan. You referred to the
AFSA concerns in the implementations of this program or the career
personnel of the Service. Subsection (b) of this section at the top of
page 22 contained the same admonition that was in section 413 of
the previous law, stating positively rather than negatively that
employment-under this section must be consistent with the needs of
the Service for positions for career personnel.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Mr. BARNES. Mr. Chairman, if I may. I'd like to add a comment
to Mrs. Schroeder's question in terms of trying to provide employ-
ment opportunities for family members who return to the United
States. We started some discussions with OPM about ways to enable
those people who work abroad under these several programs to obtain
credit toward civil service employment upon return to the United
States. We are working out procedures so that when they come back
they will not be disadvantaged by the virtue of having been overseas
if only in terms of time of application.
Mr. FASCEL L. Thank you.
We will stand in recess until we go cast this vote on the trade bill
and we will come right back.
[Whereupon, at 10:21 a.m., the subcommittees recessed until 10:37
a.m.]
Mr. FASCELL. When we left we had finished 333, I believe, so let's
go to 341.
Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Chairman, section 341 on Diplomatic and Con-
sular Commissions is another codification of four existing provisions
of law. The only substantive difference is that it refers generally to
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members of. the Foreign Service rather than separately to Foreign
Service officers, Foreign Service Reserve officers, Staff officers and
employees and Foreign Service information officers.
The only significant difference this makes, I believe, is with respect
to the commissioning by the secretary of a member of the service as a
vice consul. Under the present law that authority applies only to the
Staff Corps. This would be generalized by the bill and could be a use-
ful authority, for example, in commissioning officer candidates who
have not yet been appointed by the President so that they could be
assigned to consular functions more readily.
Mr. FASCELL. Do I understand then what you are saying is that the
language beginning on line 15
Mr. MICHEL. Line 15, yes, sir, used to apply only to the Staff Corps;
now it says "may commission a member of the Service." So this would
include, for example, officer candidates.
Mr. FASCELL. So the new language is "of the Service."
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. The way I understand it, it makes this authority ap-
plicable to anybody in the Service.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
1'1r. FASCELL. Any other questions on this section?
Otherwise, it is simply a rewrite?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You want to keep the diplomatic corps separate 4
Mr. MICHEL. No; excuse me. There are different commissions, diplo-
matic commissions and consular commissions. You will have a mem-
ber of the Foreign Service who may be assigned to a consular post
or to a diplomatic post but the consul in particular has some functions
that are statutory. The best example, I think, is in the notarial area.
A consular officer serves as a notary public and can notarize documents
presented at the consular post.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Couldn't the diplomatic officer do that?
Mr. MICHEL. Some can and some can't. It depends where they are.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I guess we are talking about the two separate cones.
One of the things we were talking about was the cone system and how
equal they are. Does the cone system inhibit good career ladders for
people in the consular corpse.
Mr. MICHEL. No; the Foreign Service officer gets appointed today
by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
and is simultaneously commissioned as the secretary in the diplomatic
service and a consular officer.
What I was suggesting you could do under this section is that before
that commissioning process when you are taking the candidate and
assigning that candidate to an initial post, you could through the more
simple procedure of a secretarial commission enable that officer to be
assigned to a consular post to perform functions that require a com-
mission under various other statutes.
Mr. FASCELL. So following 341 for a moment, the first sentence is
the secretarial recommendation to the President.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. On diplomatic and consular commissions or both.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
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Mr. FASCELL. And you make that distinction of diplomatic and con-
sular to retain for diplomatic persons their immunities and privileges?
Mr. MICHEL. Privileges and immunities don't derive from the com-
mission but rather from the capacity in which the person is assigned.
Mr. FASCELL. I guess the question I am asking then is why does it
take three paragraphs to cite this authority? The Secretary may recom-
mend and the President may with the advice and consent of the Senate
appoint any member of the Service, a citizen of the United States, and
commission that person as a diplomatic or consular officer.
Mr. MICHEL. Well, the second sentence reflects what is in the Con-
stitution. The President appoints ambassadors and other public minis-
ters and consuls.
Mr. FASCELL. Do we have to restate that in the law even though it is
in the old law?
Mr. MICHEL. We don't have to, but for the same reason we state the
President appoints chiefs of mission by and with the advice and con-
sent of the Senate, it helps provide a complete statement of the process.
Mr. FASCELL. New law.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, this is for clarity.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes; the Secretary recommends, the President
appoints.
Mr. FASCELL. The Secretary has a direct commissioning authority.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
This third sentence is legally necessary as an exercise of Congress
constitutional power to authorize a Cabinet officer to appoint what the
Constitution calls an inferior or subordinate officer.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, may I pursue this for a second?
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
Mr. LEACH. You were with the American Institute in Taiwan. Do its
employees lose their diplomatic and consular function and should such
a possibility be noted in the language of the act?
Mr. MICHEL. I think that is all covered in the Taiwan Relations Act,
Mr. Leach. That act provides that employees of the American Institute
in Taiwan may perform functions that will have the effect under U.S.
law as if they had been performed by a consular officer.
Mr. LEACH. There is no problem with this language with that bizarre
exception?
Mr. MICHEL. There is not. They leave the Foreign Service to work
for the American Institute. The legislation providing for this unique
relationship in the case of Taiwan authorizes the negotiation of an
agreement for privileges and immunities and deals with the author-
ities and powers of the personnel who work for the institute so that
they are able to provide a range of services to American firms and
citizens comparable to what consular officers can do.
Mr. LEACH. There is no problem with being promoted while you
are in Taiwan?
Mr. MICHEL. No; this is specifically stated in the Taiwan Relations
Act and the language of the act talks about reinstatement. I don't
remember the exact language but it is reinstatement in the same or a
higher position. The administration made clear to the Congress in
the course of the consideration of that bill the intention to have the
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selection boards consider people while they were not technically on the
rolls because they were working for the institute.
Mr. LEACH. My question then is whether there should be any new
language reflected here.
Mr. MICHEL. I think there is no need for anything additional here.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. One question keeps recurring, however. Why in the
present law and in this restatement do we have to have the separate
categories of diplomatic or consular officer or both? Why isn't there
one descriptive generic term? I don't understand that yet.
Mr. MICHEL. This does not have to do with their personnel status.
Their personnel status is that they are a member of the Foreign Serv-
ice. This has to do with the fact that-
Mr. FASCELL. Functional status?
Mr. MICHEL. It has to do with their functional status because under
international law and practice there are still consulates and there are
embassies.
Mr. FASCELL. That is what I tried to raise before in talking about
diplomatic privileges and immunities, although it does not directly
apply. The reason you are using this breakout diplomatic or consular
officer is simply international custom and, usage?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir, and
Mr. FASCELL. Wait a minute. Let's finish that.
Mr. MICHEL. All right.
Mr. FASCELL. There is no distinction in our law as far as the in-
dividual being a member of the Foreign Service.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, he may have different functional duties depend-
ing on whether or not he is a diplomatic officer or a consular officer.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
The chapter on assignments, chapter 5, provides for assignment to
any post or position. There is no distinction made between consular
and diplomatic assignments.
Mr. FASCELL. But section 341 is Mrs. Schroeder's original question,
simply to lay out in the law a legal distinction between diplomatic
and consular commissions. Now if the only purpose of that is interna-
tional precedent or usage, then I think we have to be quite clear.
Otherwise, I don't see the necessity for the separation.
Why do you have to have the authority spelled out as a diplomat or
a consular officer in the law if all you are doing is simply meeting what
is international custom and usage? Why wouldn't the fact that the
individual has been commissioned as a Foreign Service officer meet
the requirements of U.S. law?
Mr. MICHEL. There are U.S. laws dating from the 18th and 19th
centuries on powers and duties and functions of diplomatic officers
and, more particularly, consular officers-the laws relating to no-
tarials, the laws relating to services to American seamen, the laws
relating to conservation of the estates of deceased Americans.
Mr. FASCELL. What you are saying is that in a series of U.S. laws
you have a separate category for the consular function.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
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Mr. FASCELL. Which cannot be integrated into the laws of the
Foreign Service?
Mr. MICHEL. It has to do with the individual's particular assign-
ment at a particular time and not with their personnel status. We are
frequently called upon to-
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me now. Can any other person other than a
Foreign Service officer be clothed with the consular duties and respon-
sibilities under other laws?
Mr. MICHEL. Congress could by statute, I think, authorize
Mr. FASCELL. Any person.
Mr. MICHEL [continuing]. Any person to perform the functions of
a consular officer.
Mr. FASCELL. In effect we did that in the Taiwan legislation.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
A foreign government might not accept or permit a person who is
not a consular officer to perform those functions in its territory because
it would be outside the normal arrangements under international law
and practice whereby there are existing laws and procedures for ac-
creditation of diplomats for notification of consular personnel. This
is a historical distinction that persists into the 20th century. So if we
notify someone to the foreign government as a consular officer, they
say, OK, he can come in and perform consular functions.
Mr. FASCELL. He has no diplomatic status?
Mr. MICHEL. Unless simultaneously assigned to a diplomatic mis-
sion. We have some people who are notified as members of the diplo-
matic mission and they are also notified as consular officers.
Mr. FASCELL. But the acceptance process and the accreditation
process is different?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right, and that is a matter of international law.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's take an example. Let's just for the moment as-
sume that there are no categorical divisions within the State Depart-
ment personnel system.
Mr. MICHEL. All right.
Mr. FASCELL. They are just wiped out, there are no cones.
Now what does this section do?
Mr. MICHEL. This says that you can take any member of this unified
Foreign Service and assign that person to a position in a consulate or
to an Embassy in a diplomatic capacity and you can provide that per-
son with a commission that is evidence of his or her authority to act in
a consular capacity or a diplomatic capacity as the case may be.
Mr. FASCELL. So the fact that you have categorical distinctions by
rules and regulations within the personnel system really makes no dif-
ference as far as the statutory responsibilities are concerned, and the
consular statutory responsibilities are not all in this statute?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. That leads to the next question. How many of those
statutes do we have, and where' are they? We ought to have those for
the record. I don't know whether we have given any thought to the
integration of those statutory responsibilities in this law but we cer-
tainly ought not to just pass over that. If we are going to go to this
kind of trouble, we ought to take a look at that.
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Mr. MICHEL. We can provide those for the record, Mr. Chairman.
They are found primarily in subchapter X of chapter 14 in 22 U.S.
Code.
[The material referred to follows:]
LEGAL BASIS FOR THE FUNCTIONS OF U.S. CONSULAR OFFICERS ABROAD
The Foreign Service Act of 1946, as amended provides generally for the com-
missioning of Foreign Service officers and employees as consular officers; and
the assignment of such officers and employees to post abroad.' However, the Act
does not purport to specify the functions of consular officers. Rather, it directs
the officers and employees of the Foreign Service, under the direction of the Sec-
retary of State, to "perform the duties and comply with the obligations resulting
from the nature of their appointments or assignments or imposed on them by the
terms of any law or by any order or regulation issued pursuant to law or by any
international agreement to which the United States is a party."'
In addition, the Act authorizes the Secretary of State to prescribe regulations
consistent with law "in relation to the duties, functions and obligations of con-
sular officers. * * *"A
The proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 contains similar provisions, and does
not depart from the general scope and content of the 1946 Act.
The Foreign Service Act thus merely acknowledges the existence of other
authorities which determine the rights and duties of consular officers. Statutory
sources of consular rights and duties are collected in subchapter x of chapter 14
of title 22, United States Code (copy attached). This subchapter contains 31
sections, generally derived from eighteenth and nineteenth century statutes,
dealing with such diverse matters as solemnization of marriages, conservation
of estates of decedents, certification of invoices, retention of papers of American
vessels, and depositions and notarial acts. Other statutes specify the authority
of consular officers with respect to visas,' assistance to American vessels and
eeamen,7 and customs matters.' In addition, consular officers are authorized by
regulation' to issue passports pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 211a, and their acts are
given significance under some State laws "
Consular functions are also specified in the various consular conventions and
related treaties to which the United States is a party. These treaties reflect the
views of the parties as to the appropriateness of various activities as legitimate
consular functions. The most widely representative view of international prac-
tice in this regard is that set out in the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations.11 The Vienna Convention is in force for the United States and some
ninety-one other countries. Article 5 of the Convention (copy attached) lists
twelve general areas of consular responsibility, including such matters as pro-
tecting the interests of the sending State and its nationals, promoting commerce,
performing notarials, administrative and quasi-judicial services and dealing
with ships and aircraft of the sending State.
Taken together, the laws of the United States and relevant treaties make clear
that consuls are expected to perform a wide range of facilitative services on
behalf of nationals of the sending State. They record births, deaths and mar-
riages, notarize papers, issue travel documents, conserve estates of decedents,
assist seamen, the ill and incarcerated, transmit letters rogatory, take deposi-
tions, and provide information on local business conditions. The implementing
regulations of the Secretary of Stater' provide a fuller account of the functions
of United States consular officers.
1 22 U.S.C. 907, 924, 938.
' 22 U.S.C. 909. 923, 937.
' 22 U.S.C. 841.
4 22 U.S.C. 842.
' H.R. 4674, 96th Cong., 1st Bess., U 104(1), 201, 341, 511.
' Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.
* See, e.g., 46 U.S.C. 656-659, 662-664, 677, 679. 682-685.
s See, e.g., 19 U.S.C. 338-341, 1482, 1487, 1527, 1707.
'22 CFR 151.21(b).
10 See, e.g., 22 CPR ? 92.5.
1121 UST 77, TIAS 6820.
1' 22 CPR, ch. I, subch. H-K.
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SUBCHAPTER X-POWERS, DUTIES, AND LIABILITIES OF CONSULAR OFFICERS
GENERALLY
? 1171. General application of provisions to consular officers
The various provisions of sections 168, 1173 to 1177, 1180, 1182, 1184, 1185.
1187 to 1194, and 1196 to 1203 of this title which are expressed in terms of gen-
eral application to any particular classes of consular officers, shall be deemed
to apply as well to all other classes of such officers, so far as may be consistent
with the subject matter of the same and with the treaties of the United States.
(R.S. ? 1689.)
? 1172. Solemnization of marriages
Marriages in presence of any consular officer of the United States in a foreign
country, between persons who would be authorized to marry if residing in the
District of Columbia, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, and shall have
the same effect as if solemnized within the United States. And such consular
officer shall, in all cases, give to the parties married before them a certificate of
such marriage, and shall send another certificate thereof to the Department of
State, there to be kept ; such certificate shall specify the names of the parties,
their ages, places of birth, and residence.
(R. S. ? 4082.)
? 1178. Protests
Consuls and vice consuls shall have the right, in the ports or places to which
they are severally appointed, of receiving the protests or declarations which
captains, masters, crews, passengers, or merchants, who are citizens of the
United States, may respectively choose to make there, and also such as any
foreigner may choose to make before them relative to the personal interest of any
citizen of the United States.
(R.S. ? 1707; June 25, 1948, ch. 646, ? 39, 62 Stat. 992.)
? 1174. Lists and returns of seamen and vessels, etc.
Every consular officer shall keep a detailed list of all seamen and mariners
shipped and discharged by him, specifying their names and the names of the
vessels on which they are shipped and from which they are discharged, and the
payments, if any, made on account of each so discharged ; also of the number
of the vessels arrived and departed, the amounts of their registered tonnage,
and the number of their seamen and mariners, and of those who are protected,
and whether citizens of the United States or not, and as nearly as possible the
nature and value of their cargoes, and where produced, and shall make returns
of the same, with their accounts and other returns, to the Secretary of Commerce.
? 1175. Estates of decedents generally; General Accounting Office as conservator
It shall be the duty of a consular officer, or, if no consular officer is present,
a diplomatic officer, under such procedural regulations as the Secretary of
State may prescribe-
First. To take possession and to dispose of the personal estate left by any
citizen of the United States, except a seaman who is a member of the crew of
an American vessel, who shall die within or is domiciled at time of death within
his jurisdiction : Provided, That such procedure is authorized by treaty pro-
visions or permitted by the laws or authorities of the country wherein the death
occurs, or the decendent is domiciled, or that such privilege is accorded by
established usage: Provided further, That the decedent shall leave in the country
where the death occurred or where he was domiciled, no legal representative,
partner in trade, or trustee by him appointed to take care of his personal estate. A
consular officer or, in his absence, a diplomatic officer shall act as the provisional
conservator of the personal property within his jurisdiction of a deceased citizen
of the United States but, unless authorized by treaty provisions, local law, or
usage, he shall not act as administrator of such personal property. He shall render
assistance in guarding, collecting, and transmitting the property to the United
States to be disposed of according to the law of the decendent's domicile.
Second. After having taken possession of the personal property, as provi-
sional conservator, to invnetory and carefully appraise the effects, article by
article, with the assistance of two competent persons who, together with such
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officer, shall sign the inventory and annex thereto an appropriate certificate as
to the accuracy of the appraised value of each article.
Third. To collect the debts due to the decedent in his jurisdiction and pay
from the estate the obligations owed there by the decedent.
Fourth. To sell at auction, after reasonable public notice, unless the amount
involved does not justify such expenditure, such part of the estate as shall be
of a perishable nature, and after reasonable public notice and notice to next
of kin if they can be ascertained by reasonable diligence such further part, If
any, as shall be necessary for the payment of the decedent's debts incurred in
such country, and funeral expenses, and expenses incident to the disposition of
the estate. If, at the expiration of one year from the date of death (or for such
additional period as may be required for final settlement of the estate), no
claimant shall appear, the residue of the estate, with the exception of invest-
ments of bonds, shares of stocks, notes of indebtedness, jewelry or heirlooms,
or other articles having a sentimental value, shall be sold.
Fifth. To transmit to the General Accounting Office the proceeds of the sale
(and any unsold effects, such as investments of bonds, shares of stocks, notes
of indebtedness, jewelry or heirlooms, or other articles having a sentimental
value), there to lie. h21d in trust for the legal claimant. If, however, at any
time prior to such transmission, the decedent's legal representative should ap-
pear and demand the proceeds and effects in the officer's hands, he shall deliver
them to such representative after having collected the prescribed fee therefor.
The Comptroller General of the United States, or such member of the Account-
ing Office as he may duly empower to act as his representative for the purpose,
shall act as conservator of such parts of these estates as may be received by the
General Accounting Office or are in its possession, and may, when deemed to be
in the interest of the estate, sell such effects, including bonds, shares of stock.
notes of indebtedness, jewerly, or other articles, which have heretofore or may
hereafter be so received, and pay the expenses of such sale out of the proceeds :
Provided, That application for such effects shall not have been made by the legal
claimant within six years after their receipt. The Comptroller General is author-
ized, for and in behalf of the estate of the deceased, to receive any balances due
to such estates, to draw therefor on banks, safe deposits, trust or loan companies,
or other like institutions, to endorse all checks, bill of exchange, promissory
notes, and other evidences of indebtedness due to such estates, and take such
other action as may be deemed necessary for the conservation of such estates.
The net proceeds of such sales, together with such other moneys as may be col-
lected by him, shall be deposited into the Treasury to a fund in trust for the legal
claimant and reported to the Secretary of State.
If no claim to the effects the proceeds of which have been so deposited shall
have been received from a legal claimant of the deceased within six years from
the date of the receipt of the effects by the General Accounting Office, the funds
so deposited, with any remaining unsold effects. less transmittal charges, shall
be transmitted by that office to the proper officer of the State or Territory of the
last domicile in the United States of the deceased citizen, if known, or, if not, such
funds shall be covered into the general fund of the Treasury as miscellaneous
receipts on account of proceeds of deceased citizens, and any such remaining
unsold effects shall be disposed of by the General Accounting Office in such man-
ner as, in the judgment of the Comptroller General, is deemed appropriate. or
they may be destroyed if considered no longer possessed of any value : Provided.
That when the estate shall be valued in excess of $500, and no claim therefor has
been presented to the General Accounting Office by a legal claimant within the
period specified in this paragraph or the legal claimant is unknown, before dis-
position of the estate as provided herein, notice shall be given by publishing once
a week for four consecutive weeks in a newspaper published in the country of
the last known domicile of the deceased, in the United States, the expense
thereof to be deducted from the proceeds of such estate, and any lawful claim
received as the result of such advertisement shall be adjusted and settled as
provided for herein.
(R. S. ? 1709; Mar. 3, 1911, ch. 223, 36 Stat. 1083; June 10, 1921, ch. 18, ? 304, 42
Stat. 24; July 12, 1940, ch. 618, 54 Stat. 758.)
? 1176. Notification of death of decedent; transmission of inventory of effects
For the information of the representative of the deceased, the consular officer,
or, if no consular officer is present, a diplomatic officer, in the settlement of his
estate shall immediately notify his death in one of the gazettes published in the
consular district, and also to the Secretary of State, that the same may be nbti-
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fled in the State to which the deceased belonged ; and he shall, as soon as may be,
transmit to the Secretary of State an inventory of the effects of the deceased
taken as before directed.
When a citizen of the United States dies in a foreign country and leaves, by
any lawful testamentary disposition, special directions for the custody and
management, by the consular officer, or in his absence a diplomatic officer, within
whose jurisdiction the death occurred, of the personal property in the foreign
country which he possessed at the time of death, such officer shall, so far as the
laws of the foreign country permit, strictly observe such directions if not contrary
to the laws 'of the United States. If such citizen has named, by any lawful testa-
mentary disposition, any other person than a consular officer or diplmatic officer
to take charge of and manage such property, it shall be the duty of the officer,
whenever required by the person so named, to give his official aid in whatever
way may be practicable to facilitate the proceedings of such person in the lawful
execution of his trust, and, so far as the laws of the country or treaty provisions
permit, to protect the property of the deceased from any interference by the au-
thorities of the country where such citizen died. To this end it shall be the duty
of the consular officer, or if no consular officer is present a diplomatic 'officer, to
safeguard the decedent's property by placing thereon his official seal and to break
and remove such seal only upon the request of the person designated by the
deceased to take charge of and manage his property.
(R.S. ? 1711; July 12, 1940, ch. 618, 54 Stat. 758.)
? 1178. Bond as administrator or guardian; action on bond
No consular officer of the United States shall accept an appointment from any
foreign state as administrator, guardian, or to any other office or trust for the
settlement or conservation of estates of deceased persons or of their heirs or of
persons under legal disabilities, without executing a bond, with security, to be
approved by the Secretary of State, and in a penal sum to be fixed by him and in
such form as he may prescribe, conditioned for the true and faithful performance
of all his duties according to law and for the true and faithful accounting for
delivering, and paying over to the persons thereto entitled of all moneys, goods,
effects, and other property which shall come to his hands or to the hands of any
other person to his use as such administrator, guardian, or in other fiduciary
capacity. Said bond shall be deposited with the Secretary of the Treasury. In
case of a breach of any such bond, any person injured by the failure of such
officer faithfully to discharge the duties of said trust according to law, may
institute, in his own name and for his sole use, a suit upon said bond and there-
upon recover such damages as shall be legally assessed, with costs of suit, for
which execution may issue in due form; but if such party fails to recover in the
suit, judgment shall be rendered and execution may issue against him for costs in
favor of the defendant ; and the United States shall in no case be liable for the
same. The said bond shall remain, after any judgment rendered thereon, as a
security for the benefit of any person injured by a breach of the condition of
the same until the whole penalty has been recovered.
(June 30, 1902, ch. 1331, ? 1, 32 Stat. 546.)
? 1179. Penalty for failure to give bond and for embezzlement
Every consular officer who accepts any appointment to any office of trust
mentioned in section 1178 of this title without first having complied with the
provisions thereof by due execution of a bond as therein required, or who shall
willfully fail or neglect to account for, pay over, and deliver any money, prop-
erty, or effects so received to any person lawfully entitled thereto, after having
been requested by the latter, his representative or agent so to do, shall be deemed
guilty of embezzlement and shall be punishable by imprisonment for not more
than five years and by a fine of not more than $5,000.
(June 30, 1902, ch. 1331, ? 2, 32 Stat. 547.)
? 1180. Certification of invoices generally
No consular officer shall certify any invoice unless he is satisfied that the per-
son making oath there to is the person he represents himself to be, that he is a
credible person, and that the statements made under such oath are true; and
he shall, thereupon, by his certificate, state that he was so satisfied.
(R.S. ? 1715.)
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? 1181. Fees for certification of invoices
Fees for the consular certification of invoices shall be, and they are, included
with the fees for official services for which the President is authorized by sec-
tion 1201 of this title to prescribe rates or tariffs.
(Apr. 5,1906, ch. 1366, ? 9, 34 Stat. 101.)
? 1182. Exaction of excessive fees for verification of invoices; penalty
The fee provided by law for the verification of invoices by consular officers
shall, when paid, be held to be a full payment for furnishing blank forms of
declaration to be signed by the shipper, and for making signing, and sealing the
certificate of the consular officer thereto ; and any consular officer who, under
pretense of charging for blank forms, advice, or clerical services in the prepara-
tion of such declaration or certificate, charges or receives any fee greater in
amount than that provided by law for the verification of invoices, or who de-
mands or receives for any official services, or who allows any clerk or subordinate
to receive for any such service, any fee or reward other than the fee provided by
law for such service, shall be punishable by imprisonment for not more than
one year, or by a fine of not more than $2,000, and shall be removed from his
office.
(R.S. ? 1716.)
? 1183. Destruction of old invoices
The Secretary of State is authorized to cause, from time to time, the destruc-
tion of invoices that have been filed in the consular offices for a period of more
than five years.
(Feb. 24, 1903, ch. 753, 32 Stat. 854.)
? 1184. Restriction as to certificate for goods from countries adjacent to United
States
No consular officer of the United States shall grant a certificate for goods,
wares, or merchandise shipped from countries adjacent to the United States
which have passed a consulate after purchase for shipment.
(R.S. ? 1717.)
? 1185. Retention of papers of American vessels until payment of demands and
wages
All consular officers are authorized and required to retain in their possession
all the papers of vessels of the United States, which shall be deposited with them
as directed by law, till payment shall be made of all demands and wages on
account of such vessels.
(R.S. ? 1718.)
? 1186. Fees for services to American vessels or seamen prohibited
No fees named in the tariff of consular fees prescribed by order of the Presi-
dent shall be charged or collected by consular officers for the official services
to American vessels and seamen. Consular officers shall furnish the master of
every such vessel with an itemized statement of such services performed on
account of said vessel, with the fee so prescribed for each service, and make a
detailed report to the Secretary of the Treasury of such services and fees, under
such regulations as the Secretary of State may prescribe.
(June 26, 1884, ch. 121, ? 12, 23 Stat. 56.)
? 1187. Profits from dealings with discharged seamen; prohibition
No consular officer, nor any person under any consular officer shall make
any charge or receive, directly or indirectly, any compensation, by way of
commission or otherwise, for receiving or disbursing the wages or extra wages
to which any seaman or mariner is entitled who is discharged in any foreign
country, or for any money advanced to any such seaman or mariner who seeks
relief from any consulate ; nor shall any consular officer, or any person under
any consular officer, be interested, directly or indirectly, in any profit derived
from clothing, boarding or otherwise supplying or sending home any such sea-
man or mariner. Such prohibition as to profit, however, shall not be construed to
relieve or prevent any such officer who is the owner of or otherwise interested
in any vessel of the United States from transporting in such vessel any such
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seaman or mariner, or from receiving or being interested in such reasonable
allowance as may be made for such transportation by law.
(R. S. ? 1719; Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3, 34 Stat. 100.)
? 1188. Valuation of foreign coins in payment of fees
Consuls, vice consuls, and consular agents in the Dominion of. Canada, in the
collection of official fees, shall receive foreign moneys at the rate given in the
Treasury schedule of the value of foreign coins.
(R. S. ? 1722 ; Apr. 6, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3, 34 Stat. 100.)
? 1189. Exaction of excessive fees generally; penalty of treble amount
Whenever any consular officer collects, or knowingly allows to be collected
for any service, any other or greater fees than are allowed by law for such
service, he shall, besides his liability to refund the same, be liable to pay to the
person by whom or in whose behalf the same are paid, treble the amount of the
unlawful charge so collected, as a penalty, to be recovered with costs, in any
proper form of action, by such person for his own use. And in any such case the
Secretary of the Treasury may retain, out of the compensation of such officer.
the amount of such overcharge and of such penalty, and charge the same to
such officer in account, and may thereupon refund such unlawful charge, and
pay such penalty to the person entitled to the same if he shall think proper so
to do.
(R. S. ? 1723.)
? 1190. Liability for uncollected fees
Every consul general, consul, or vice consul appointed to perform the duty of
any such officer, who omits to collect any fees which he is entitled to charge
for any official service, shall be liable to the United States therefor, as if he
had collected the same ; unless, upon good cause shown therefor, the Secretary
of the Treasury shall thinx proper to remit the same.
(R. S. ? 1724; Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3,34 Stat. 100.)
? 1191. Returns as to fees by officers compensated by fees
All consular agents, as are allowed for their compensation the whole or any
part of the fees which they may collect, shall make returns in such manner as
the Comptroller General of the United States shall prescribe, of all such fees
as they or any person in their behalf so collect.
(R.S. ? 1725; July 31, 1894, ch. 174, ? 5, 28 Stat. 206; Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3,
34 Stat. 100; June 10, 1921, ch. 18, ? 304,42 Stat. 24.)
? 1192. Receipt for fees; numbering receipts
Every consular officer shall give receipts for all fees collected for his official
services, expressing the particular services for which the same were collected.
He shall number all receipts given by him for fees received for official services,
in the order of their dates, beginning with number one at the commencement of
the period of his service, and on the first day of January in every year thereafter.
(R.S. ?? 1726, 1727.)
? 1193. Registry of fees
Every consular officer shall also register in a book to be kept by him for that
purpose all fees so received by him, in the order in which they are received
specifying each item of service and the amount received therefor, from whom
and the dates when received, and if for any service connected with any vessel,
the name thereof, and indicating what items and amounts are embraced in each
receipt given by him therefor, and numbering the same according to the number
of the receipts, respectively, so that the receipts and register shall correspond
with each other, and he shall, in such register, specify the name of the person
for whom, and the date when he shall grant, issue, or verify any passport, certify
any invoice, or perform any other offical in the entry of the receipt of the fees
therefor, and also number each consular act so receipted for with the number of
such receipt, and as shown by such register.
(R.S. ? 1727.)
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? 1194. Account of fees; certification
Every consular officer responsible for the collection of fees, in rendering
his account of fees received shall furnish a full transcript of the register which
he is required to keep, and certify that such transcript is an accurate and com-
plete record of all fees received for the period shown.
(R. S. ? 1728; June 28, 1955, ch. 196, 69 Stat. 187.)
? 1195. Notarial acts, oaths, afrmations, affidavits, and depositions; fees
Every consular officer of the United States is required, whenever application
is made to him therefor, within the limits of his consulate, to administer to or
take from any person any oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and to per-
form any other notarial act which any notary public is required or authorized
by law to do within the United States ; and for every such notarial act performed
he shall charge in each instance the appropriate fee prescribed by the President.
under section 1201 of this title.
(Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 7, 34 Stat. 101.)
? 1197. Posting rates of fees
It shall be the duty of all consular officers at all times to keep posted up in
their offices, respectively, in a conspicuous place, and subject to the examination
of all persons interested therein, a copy of such rates or tariffs as shall be in
force.
(R.S. ? 1731.)
? 1198. Embezzlement of fees or of effects of American citizens
Every consular officer who willfully neglects to render true and just quarterly
accounts and returns of the business of his office, and of moneys received by him
for the use of the United States, or who neglects to pay over any balance of said
moneys due to the United States at the expiration of any quarter, before the
expiration of the next succeeding quarter, or who shall receive money, property,
or effects belonging to a citizen of the United States and shall not within a
reasonable time after demand made upon him by the Secretary of State or by
such citizen, his executor, administrator, or legal representative, account
for and pay over all moneys, property, and effects, less his lawful fees, due to
such citizen, shall be deemed guilty of embezzlement, and shall be punishable
by imprisonment for not more than five years, and by a fine of not more than
2,000.
(R. S. ? 1734; Dec. 21,1898, ch. 36, ? 3,30 Stat. 771.)
? 1200. False certificate as to ownership of property
If any consul or vice consul falsely and knowingly certifies that property be-
longing to foreigners is property belong to citizens of the United States, he
shall be punishable by imprisonment for not more than three years, and by a
fine of not more than $10,000.
(R.S. ? 1737 ; Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3, 34 Stat. 100.)
? 1201. Regulation of fees by President
The President is authorized to prescribe from time to time, the rates or tariffs
of fees to be charged for official services, and to designate what shall be regarded
as official services, besides such as are expressly declared by law, in the business
of the several embassies, legations, and consulates, and to adapt the same, by
such differences as may be necessary or proper, to each embassy, legation, or
consulate ; and it shall be the duty of all officers and persons connected with such
embassies, legations, and consulates to collect for such official services such and
only such fees as may be prescribed for their respective embassies, legations, and
consulates, and such rates or tariffs shall be reported annually to Congress .
(R. S. ? 1745 ; Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3, 34 Stat. 100.)
? 1202. Medium for payment of fees
All fees collected by diplomatic and consular officers for and in behalf of the
United States shall be collected in the coin of the United States, or at its repre-
sentative value in exchange.
(R.S. ? 1746.)
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? 1203. Depositions and notarial acts; perjury
Every secretary of embassy or legation and consular officer is authorized, when-
ever he is required or deems it necessary or proper so to do at the post, port, place,
or within the limits of his embassy, legation, or consulate, to administer to or take
from any person an oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and to perform any
notarial act which any notary public is required or authorized by law to do within
the United States. Every such oath, affirmation, affidavit, deposition, and notarial
act administered, sworn, affirmed, taken, had. or done, by or before any such
officer, when certified under his hand and seal of office, shall be as valid, and of
like force and effect within the United States, to all intents and purposes, as if
administered, sworn, affirmed, taken, had, or done, by or before any other person
within the United States duly authorized and competent thereto. If any person
shall willfully and corruptly commit perjury, or by any means procure any person
to commit perjury in any such oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, within
the intent and meaning of any Act of Congress now or hereafter made, such of-
fender may be charged, proceeded against, tried, convicted, and dealt with in any
district of the United States, in the same manner, in all respects, as if such offense
had been committed in the United States, before any officer duly authorized
therein to administer or take such oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and
shall be subject to the same punishment and disability therefor as are or shall
be prescribed by any such act for such offense ; and any document purporting to
have affixed, impressed, or subscribed thereto, or thereon the seal and signature
of the officer administering or taking the same in testimony thereof, shall be ad-
mitted in evidence without proof of any such seal or signature being genuine or of
the official character of such person ; and if any person shall forge any such seal
or signature, or shall tender in evidence any such document with a false or
counterfeit seal or signature thereto, knowing the same to be false or counter-
feit, he shall be deemed and taken to be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction
shall be imprisoned not exceeding three years nor less than one year, and fined,
in a sum not to exceed $3,000, and may be charged, proceeded against, tried, con-
victed, and dealt with therefor in the district where he may be arrested or in
custody.
(R. S. ? 1750. Apr. 5, 1906, ch. 1366, ? 3, 34 Stat. 100.)
VIENNA CONVENTION ON CONSULAR RELATIONS
Consular functions consist in :
(a) protecting in the receiving State the interests of the sending State
and of its nationals, both individuals and bodies corporate, within the limits
permitted by international law ;
(b) furthering the development of commercial, economic, cultural and
scientific relations between the sending State and the receiving State and
otherwise promoting friendly relations between them in accordance with
the provisions of the present Convention ;
(c) ascertaining by all lawful means conditions and developments in the
commercial, economic, cultural and scientific life of the receiving State,
reporting thereon to the Government of the sending State and giving infor-
mation to persons interested ;
(d) issuing passports and travel documents to nationals of the sending
State, and visas or appropriate documents to persons wishing to travel to
the sending State ;
(e) helping and assisting nationals, both individuals and bodies corporate,
of the sending State ;
(f) acting as notary and civil registrar and in capacities of a similar
kind, and performing certain functions of an administrative nature, pro-
vided that there is nothing contrary thereto in the laws and regulations of
the receiving State ;
(g) safeguarding the interests of nationals, both individuals and bodies
corporate, of the sending State in cases of succession mortis causa in the
territory of the receiving State, in accordance with the laws and regulations
of the receiving State ;
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(h) safeguarding, within the limits imposed by the laws and regulations
of the receiving State, the interests of minors and other persons lacking full
capacity who are nationals of the sending State, particularly where any
guardianship or trusteeship is required with respect to such persons;
(i) subject to the practices and procedures obtaining in the receiving
State, representing or arranging appropriate representation for nationals
of the sending State before the tribunals and other authorities of the receiv-
ing State, for the purpose of obtaining, in accordance with the laws and
regulations of the receiving State, provisional measures for the preservation
of the rights and interests of these nationals, where, because of absence or
any other reason, such nationals are unable at the proper time to assume the
defense of their rights and interests ;
(j) transmitting judicial and extra-judicial documents or executing let-
ters rogatory or commissions to take evidence for the courts of the sending
State in accordance with international agreements in force or, in the absence
of such international agreements, in any other manner compatible with the
laws and regulations of the receiving State ;
(k) exercising rights of supervision and inspection provided for in the
laws and regulations of the sending State in respect of vessels having the
nationality of the sending State, and of aircraft registered in that State,
and in respect of their crews ;
(1) extending assistance to vessels and aircraft mentioned in sub-para-
graph (k) of this Article and to their crews, taking statements regarding the
voyage of a vessel, examining and stamping the ship's papers, and, without
prejudice to the powers of the authorities of the receiving State, conduct-
ing investigations into any incidents which occurred during the voyage, and
settling disputes of any kind between the master, the officers and the sea-
men insofar as this may be authorized by the laws and regulations of the
sending State;
(m) performing any other functions entrusted to a consular post by the
sending State which are not prohibited by the laws and regulations of the
receiving State or to which no objection is taken by the receiving State or
which are referred to in the international agreements in force between the
sending State and the receiving State.
? 1204. Authentication of documents of State of Vatican City by consular office
in Rome
Until the United States shall have consular officer resident in the State of
the Vatican City, a copy of any document of record or on file in a public office
of said State of the Vatican City, certified by the lawful custodian of such docu-
ment, aiay be authenticated, as provided in section 1741 of title 28, by a con-
sular officer of the United States resident in the city of Rome, Kingdom of Italy,
and such document or record shall when so certified and authenticated, be admis-
sible in evidence in any court of the United States.
Mr. MICHEL. Someone just reminded me that there are also a lot of
State laws that refer to consuls. We cannot really get away from the
fact that these historical distinctions exist.
Mr. FASCELL. You have to have a designation as a consular officer in
order to make it clear to everybody what you are talking about.
Mr. MICHEL. The individual has the authority. We are often asked
to certify that someone is duly commissioned and qualified to act at
a certain location and in order to do that we think that this commis-
sioning process is important.
Mr. FASCELL. And if you didn't have this authority in law, you
would have to do it by regulation anyway.
Mr. MICHEL. We would have to do something so that the person who
signed that authorization certificate really was acting properly within
the scope of their authority.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FASCELL. Certainly.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What would be wrong with commissioning every-
body as both a diplomatic and a consular officer-give everyone a dual
commission?
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Mr. MICHEL. We do that generally for career people who are going
out and who will be subject to various assignments.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So just about everybody that is career gets a dual
commission?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Who would not be?
Mr. MICHEL. A limited appointment. There is also the possibility
that someone who is going out at the junior level as an officer candi-
date, as I mentioned, who had not yet gotten a Presidential commis-
sion might be given a secretarial vice consul commission so that they
could perform these various statutory functions.
Mr. FASCELL. Any other questions?
All right. Let's go on to the next section.
Mr. READ. I might just interject, Mr. Chairman, if I may. The next
three chapters contain quite a number of the new provisions which we
are proposing. I think you will find that when we get to chapters 7, 8,
and 9, just to hold out a light at the' end of the tunnel, it is essentially
codification in those particular chapters. But these next ones do require
your very close attention.
Mr. FASCELL. OK.
Chapter 4, Compensation, Section 401.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 401 concerns salaries of chiefs of mission. This
continues the existing law which provides for four levels of chief of
mission salaries, at levels II through V of the Federal executive salary
schedule. The difference in subsection (a) is only that existing law says
there must be four categories and this subsection says every chief of
mission shall be given a salary at any one or the other of those four
levels. So it contemplates authority for continued distinctions among
chiefs of mission but does not mandate that existing four-tiered
structure.
The second subsection, subsection (b), is also drawn from existing
law. This authorizes an exception to the rule that appointment of a
successor vacates the incumbent's appointment. This permits the Am-
bassador who is departing the post to continue to be the Ambassador
for a period of 50 days while getting back into the assignment pro-
cedures, even though a successor has been appointed.
Mr. FASCELL. What does the 50-day period mean?
Mr. MICHEL. The 50-day period is the period during which the out-
going chief of mission can continue to receive the salary for that post
as chief of mission.
Mr. FASCELL. Is he paid on a monthly basis or semimonthly?
Mr. MICHEL. He is paid on a biweekly payroll basis.
Mr. FASCELL. Why wouldn't you make it 4 weeks, 6 weeks,1 month ?
That is the question I am asking. What is the significance of 50 days
instead of 49 or 61, if any?
Mr. MICHEL. There is nothing magic about 50 days. We simply took
it from the 1946 act. It is intended to reflect a reasonable time.
Mr. FASCELL. It has no budgetary or administrative significance as
far as the
Mr. MICHEL. Its only significance as a particular number is
historical.
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Mr. FASCELL. It was a congressional compromise of some kind?
Mr. MICHEL. Perhaps it was in 1946.
Mr. BUCHANAN. What would be the normal time of transition?
Would you ever need the 50 days?
Mr. FASCELL. It depends on the Ambassador's political skill.
Mr. BARNES. If I were to draw an average, I think we do, use less
than 50 but I can remember in the last 11/2 years a couple of cases
where we used the full 50.
Mr. FASCELL. I remember during one administration one Ambassa-
dor wandering around for 2 years.
Mr. MICHEL. On the expiration of the 50 days, there is not a termina-
tion of salary but reversion to the salary of whatever class the career
officer held.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Would you envision an instance where you need
more than 50 days?
Mr. BARNES. On the basis of my experience so far, no.
Mr. FASCELL. If you tried to increase that, there would probably be
a revolution in the ranks.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is the chief of mission going to receive pay at level
2 or level 5 or somewhere in between?
Mr. MICHEL. There is an existing structure of post classification
based essentially on the size and complexity of the mission.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is it size and complexity of our own mission?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Or the hardship post?
Mr. MICHEL. No, it is the size of the U.S. mission and the number of
people who are there and the range of things it does.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Would you get more money in Paris than in
Uganda?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. BARNES. It has to do with the significance of our relations with
that country, the scope of the responsibilities that the Ambassador has
which are not tied into size but are
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And you rejected the single pay rate; is that
correct?
Mr. BARNES. We do provide for the possibility of changing.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Why? Do you think there is that much difference's
Is it that significant?
Mr. READ. We found, Mrs. Schroeder, that there was great reluctance
to abandon the present arrangement at this time because there are obvi-
ously significant differences of responsibility. As you will see in the
next section, those career persons who are appointed will have the
opportunity to opt for the post classification pay level or they will be
able to retain their regular class compensation and be eligible for per-
formance pay. It did seem wise not to do away with post classification
at this time. Under this language, a change is permitted if it is deemed
sensible in the future.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 401(b) is a restatement of present law.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. 411 is new?
Mr. MICHEL. 411 is new because it contemplates a new category, the
Senior Foreign Service. The salaries for the Senior Foreign Service,
according to this new section, are established by reference to the maxi-
mum and minimum rates for the Senior Executive Service under the
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Civil Service Reform Act. We do contemplate at present using three
salary levels, three classes, within this Senior Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. Any questions on 411?
Let's take 421 before we break for this vote.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 421, the Foreign Service schedule, prescribes
a single salary rate for the Foreign Service below the Senior Foreign
Service threshold. This would replace the two existing schedules for
Foreign Service officers and Reserve officers on the one hand and for
the Staff Corps on the other. It is limited to the top of a GS-15, which
is the breaking point also in the Civil Service Reform Act.
The provision for nine classes in this schedule is a prediction. The
pay study is still under intensive review within the administration and
one outcome might be a nine-class structure. We really have to provide
details on this when we have completed the review of the pay study.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Which I assume would predate the enactment of
this legislation.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Everything may predate the enactment of this legis-
lation. That is what I heard yesterday.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I was going to ask some questions about the Hay
Study. Have you not been subject to the pay comparability act? Then
how did you get so far behind?
Mr. BARNES. That is what we keep asking ourselves.
Mr. FASCELL. Other than OMB and Congress, what has been the
problem?
Mr. BARNES. Probably some initiative on, our own part trying to
bring data up to date so we had the basis for raising the question in a
sensible way which we now have in the form of the study.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But this may all be changed; is that correct?
I mean, you may come out with a whole new pay scale.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, but we cannot provide you the chart to show you
what it is at this time.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, obviously we are going to require that before we
move too far along.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.'
I might just add that there are a couple of objectives; one is com-
parability and the other is to facilitate interchange, first by having
the Foreign Service schedule line up a little bit better with* the civil
service pay scale, and, second, to avoid the artificial distinctions that
we now have with the Staff Corps being under a separate schedule.
Mr. FASCELL. Right now you have-two separate schedules?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. All right.
We are going to have to go vote.
[Whereupon, at 11:06 a.m., the subcommittees recessed until 11:31
a.m.]
Mr. FASCELL. Let's go on. We are going to keep being interrupted,
Mr. Secretary, I am afraid, so let's see if we cannot proceed until 12
o'clock and then we will have to call this off and start up again some
other day as quickly as possible.
Where were we?
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Mr. MICHEL. Section 431, Mr. Chairman, assignment to a salary
class.
This section is a change from the existing law only with respect to
Foreign Service officers. It provides that the Secretary of State will
assign a member to a salary class. This reflects the rank-in-person sys-
tem rather than the rank-in-job system. The exceptions to that pro-
cedure are the chief of mission and the Senior Foreign Service member
whose salary is determined by the terms of the appointment.
Mr. FASCELL. What about subsection (b) ?
Mr. MICHEL. In subsection (b), the first sentence reflects existing
law. It simply reaffirms that the member can be assigned from place
to place and from job to job but their salary is personal to them and
not determined by the job to which they are assigned.
The second sentence states something affirmatively that has been
the case generally in the past, that members of the Foreign Service
can have their salary changed only in accordance with chapter 6 which
provides the procedures for competitive promotion on a merit basis.
The reference to chapter 35 of title 5, United States Code, is a refer-
ence to the chapter concerning reductions in force and this reference
preserves the current application of the reduction-in-force procedures
to the Foreign Service members who are not Presidential appointees.
That is the present law.
Mr. FASCELL. Any questions on this section?
Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to note in passing that
we have gone from "his" appointment in the old law to "his" or "her"
in the new draft. I guess that represents some kind of progress.
Mr. MICHEL. That is a very deliberate change, Mr. Chairman.
Mrs. SCIIROEDER. And veterans preference points apply, right?
Mr. MICHEL. No, as to veterans, the fact of status as a veteran or
disabled veteran is to be given consideration for appointment as a
Foreign Service officer or Foreign Service information officer. It is
not a point system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Doesn't chapter 35
Mr. MICHEL. Chapter 35 is reductions in force. There is a veteran's
retention in that. There has been very little use of the reduction-in-
force authorities in the Foreign Service. No one here can think of a
situation in State where there has been a reduction in force. There
have been occasions in the Agency for International Development
where there have been major program changes that have required this.
The preference and the more normal procedure would be to use this
act and the provisions for selection out to avoid overstaffing. This
would be on the comparative merit basis in the procedure of the selec-
tion board.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me ask you this. Since RIF is across the board
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL [continuing]. And this is a supplementary law, who
has the elective right-management? The Department, in other
words? There is no elective right in the employees, is there?
Mr. MICHEL. On a RIF?
Mr. FASCELL. No.
Mr. MICHEL. Excuse me.
Mr. FASCELL. On either the selection out process under this law or
RIF under title 5?
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Mr. MICHEL. The number of personnel
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, the State Department could use RIF
under title 5 if it wanted to?
Mr. MICHEL. If it wanted to.
Mr. FASCELL. But the election or selection of which law to use is
not an employee right?
Mr. MICHEL. No, that is right. I was trying to recall the list of man-
agement rights which are reserved in chapter 10 and I think that the
combination of determinations on,budget and numbers of personnel
would preserve that as a management thing.
Mr. FASCELL. Title 5 does not give the employee the right in terms
of RIF except those rights which are spelled out in the law?
Mr. MICHEL. And the civil service regulations which would be appli-
cable if an election were made to use that procedure.
Mr. FAS'CELL. Well, I had hoped that we would get a little further
along, but it looks useless so we will do at least 5 more minutes.
Let's go to section 441.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 441 provides authority for performance pay
for the Senior Foreign Service. This is drawn essentially from the
Civil Service Reform Act provisions on performance pay and rank
awards for the senior executive service. This is an award made on an
annual basis in addition to basic salary. Those who are eligible are
those who are serving in career Senior Foreign Service appointment
or as career candidates. That parallels the Civil Service Reform Act.
We have also provided performance pay for those people who leave
the senior executive service, where they were eligible for performance
pay, and take a limited appointment in the Foreign Service. So their
rights and benefits remain essentially unaffected by taking that tem-
porary-excuse me, limited Foreign Service appointment.
The amount of the performance pay, the basic award is limited to a
maximum 20 percent of salary and not more than one-half the mem-
bers of the Senior Foreign Service may be granted those awards in any
year. Additional awards beyond the 20-percent limitation may be
made of up to $10,000 for not to exceed 5 percent of the Senior Foreign
Service and up to $20,000 for not to exceed an additional 1 percent.
That is all within the 50-percent limit.
The additional awards above the 20 percent of salary would be made
by the President as under the Civil Service Reform Act, and this
would be a judgment across agency lines as to an outstanding 5 percent
and 1 percent on an annual basis.
Mr. FASCELL. Is there any substantial difference in section 441 and
the civil service or are the only changes conforming changes?
Mr. MICHEL. The only thing that we have not taken from the Civil
Service Reform Act is the 5-year bar between awards for meritorious
or distinguished service. That frankly didn't seem to be a desirable
limitation in that it says no matter how good somebody is, we cannot
recognize that any more often than 5 years.
Mr. FASCELL. Any questions on section 441 ?
Well, we will start then next time with section 442. I want to thank
you very much, gentlemen, for being with us today.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask a question as to
whether all performance awards could go to the State Department
Senior Foreign Service rather than AID or ICA ?
Mr. MICHEL. No. Each agency head makes the awards up to the
20 percent and then the President makes the awards on an inter-
agency basis for distinguished or meritorious service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. READ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you.
The subcommittees stand adjourned subject to the calls of the
Chairs.
[Whereupon, at 11:42 a.m., the subcommittees adjourned.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met jointly at 9 :20 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn
House Office Building, Hon. Patricia Schroeder (chairwoman of the
Subcommittee on Civil Service) presiding.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We will call the meeting to order this morning. I
would like to defer to the gentleman from Florida to introduce his
distinguished colleagues.
Mr. FASCELL. Madam Chairperson, this is a rare occasion for me. I
think the first time I did this was in 1953, and my distinguished col-
league had already 'had more years of outstanding service to the U.S.
Senate than I have had probably all my life. He is an unusual person,
to say the least, but one thing that always sticks in my memory about
Senator Claude Pepper is that he has always been far out in front of
everybody else, certainly in the Congress of the United States in mat-
ters that affect human beings and social reforms which are now part of
our everyday life. I just hope that I can match his creativity and enthu-
siasm.
I am very happy to welcome a very distinguished colleague from
Florida as our first witness this morning, Hon. Claude Pepper.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We welcome you, too.
STATEMENT OF ZION. CLAUDE PEPPER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. PEPPER. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman and Mr.
Chairman.
First, let me thank my distinguished and longtime friend and col-
league for his very kind words. You know, when you get up in years a
little bit, you have to run mighty fast to keep from falling down.
[General laughter.]
I tell him that I have found life is like riding a bicycle-.you do not
fall off unless you quit going forward. So, I try to do what I can to
keep in motion, and I am very grateful to the two subcommittees for
holding these hearings this morning, and I thank you very much for
the privilege of being here with you.
(195)
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I will make a very brief statement and then I have, if they are both
here, two retired Foreign Services officers who would like to make very
brief statements, if they may. You can be assured that I will not be here
too long, Madam Chairwoman and Mr. Chairman, because I have to be
in a Rules Committee meeting at 9:45, but I am very grateful to both
of your distinguished subcommittees for having this hearing this
morning. I am here to urge you to include our legislation, H.R. 2694, to
eliminate mandatory retirement of Foreign Service officers as part
of any broader Foreign Service reform bill that you send to the floor.
As many of the Members will recall, last year, Congress took a
great step in recognizing both the rights and abilities of the elderly
by enacting H.R. 5383, my bill to abolish mandatory retirement for
most Federal workers. I will say to my distinguished colleague from
Florida, I have just returned from addressing the silver-haired legis-
lature in Florida, where 133 men and women from all over Florida
were elected. by 95,000 participating voters. All of the elected people
were over 60 years of age, and all who participated in the election
were over 60 years of age, it would have been an inspiration to you to
have seen the vitality and the dynamism in that group of people.
By the way, they passed the legislature last year. This is the second
session. They passed 15 bills, 6 of which were approved by the regu-
lar Florida Legislature. That shows they have some knowledge of
what they do.
The overwhelming votes of 359 to 4 in the House, and 88 to 7 in
the Senate constituted a decisive declaration that the Federal Govern-
ment should not continue to sanction or practice age discrimination
against its employees. The Government should, instead, become a
model employer, proudly casting a guiding light for all employers to
follow into a new era in which individual competence, not age, deter-
mines how long a person is allowed to work.
Madam Chairwoman and, Mr. Chairman, I am sure we all saw in
the paper the other day a very graphic, deplorable fact. A little girl,
5 years old, was dying from old age. She had all the symptoms of old
age at 5, cataracts, her skin took on a different complexion and charac-
ter and all that sort of thing, because the aging mechanism in the
body of that child had somehow become accelerated. Somehow it had
gotten out of its regular order. That simply shows that all people do
not age to the same degree or are of the same opinion.
Because your.committees were planning to conduct this more com-
prehensive review of the Foreign Service system in 1979, H.R. 5383
did not include the Service. Tragically, every dray that this exemption
continues, qualified Foreign Service officers who reach the magic age
of 60 are rewarded for their long service by being thrown out of their
jobs.
By the way, Madame Chairwoman and Mr. Chairman, this month
our House Committee on Aviation, the subcommittee chaired by Mr.
Glen Anderson of California, is going to hold hearings on moderating
and modifying the rule issued by General Cassado of NCAA, the
Administrator, several years ago, mandatorily retiring all pilots at
60 years of age. In other words, that policy is going to be reviewed,
even with commercial airline pilots, by a committee of our House.
So, this shows that more and more, our Congress is recognizing that
qualification and competence is the criterion of employment and that
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it is wrong to take an arbitrary age anywhere in the 60's as a criterion
of one's mandatory retirement.
The main focus of the Foreign Service Act you are now considering
is to make greater use of performance on the job. For example, pro-
motions would be based on merit, and continued service would be de-
pendent on meeting a quality standard in carrying out duties. I fully
support these efforts to reward meritorious service and weed out those
who are inadequate employees but it would be totally inconsistent to
apply criteria of merit to Foreign Service officers who are under age
60 while maintaining the arbitrary age 60 rule for mandatory retire-
ment. If competence and skill are important and can be taken into
account with employees who are 30, 40, and 59, how can they be dis-
regarded the moment a Foreign Service officer reaches age 60?
Let me give you one instance that occurred in a recent hearing of our
Aging Committee on this pilot matter. A pilot for United Airlines
was flying. a big commercial plane from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
He got 1 hour out of Los Angeles and he lost an engine. He tried to
put it back in operation. He failed. He lost a second engine. He franti-
cally tried to restore the operation of that. He lost a third engine, and
he could not restore that, but that pilot was so competent and capable
and courageous that he turned that plane around, flew it back to its
origin, landed it without any damage to the plane or any injury to
the passengers.
He received several award's and medals and eulogies, and 2 months
later was mandatorily retired as incompetent any longer to fly an
airplane. That just shows the inconsistency of that arbitrary rule. De-
fendants of the age 60 rule have cited hazardous living conditions
abroad to justify the practice of mandatory retirement based on age.
Obviously, as recent terrorist incidents point out, conditions abroad
are not always ideal, but it is ludicrous to believe that a person loses
his or her ability to cope with these stresses and strains or to function
competently because of these conditions the instant they turn 60.
What makes this even more intolerable is that other employees of
our Government who work abroad are not subject to this age discrimi-
nation. Right now, this Nation is represented by a 76-year-old Ambas-
sador, Mike Mansfield, in Japan, and 68-year-old Leonard Woodcock
is our Ambassador to China.
There are also many civil service employees in agencies like the
Agriculture Department or the General Accounting Office who work
outside the United States but are not subject to mandatory retirement
because they are not in the Foreign Service. It is absurd that two em-
ployees-one in the civil service and one in the Foreign Service-could
work next to each other overseas, perform comparable jobs, and live
under similar conditions until they are 60, when the Foreign Service
employee is automatically fired and his civil service counterpart con-
tinues to serve as long as he can perform his job.
The State Department has testified regarding their concern for an
adequate attrition rate in the senior ranks of the Foreign Service to
'`make room" for the advancement of talented younger persons. We
are all aware of the problems that could be created in an agency in
which job advancement is limited. However, mandatory retirement
based solely on age is not an acceptable method of achieving this.
Ageism is as odious as racism or sexism, and nobody is entitled to
move into a qualified worker's job just because they are younger.
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198
It is time to stop sacrificing older workers on the altar of increased
attrition and career advancement for the young. It is time to firmly
reject the outdated stereotypes that form the basis for mandatory
retirement. If there ever was a rational basis for forcing Foreign Serv-
ice retirement at age 60, it no longer exists. Therefore, I strongly and
most respectfully urge you to take this into account and rid the For-
eign Service of the last vestiges of age discrimination.
I am sorry the other witness was not able to be here, but I would
like to ask if you would be kind enough to hear Hon. Joe Glazer,
who is a distinguished Foreign Service employee and would like
to tell of his own experiences in respect to this matter under
consideration. Thank you so much.
[Mr. Pepper's prepared statement follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CLAUDE PEPPER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. Chairman, I am extremely pleased to testify before these two distinguished
subcommittees as you consider legislation to completely restructure the foreign
service system. I am here today to urge you. to include our legislation, H.R. 2694,
to eliminate mandatory retirement of foreign service officers as part of any
broader foreign service reform bill you send on to the floor.
As many of the Members will recall, last year Congress took a great step in
recognizing both the rights and abilities of the elderly by enacting H.R. 5383,
my bill to abolish mandatory retirement for most Federal workers. The over-
whelming votes of 359 to 4 in the House and 88 to 7 in the Senate constituted
a decisive declaration that the Federal Government should not continue to sanc-
tion or practice age discrimination against its employees. The Government should
instead become a model employer, proudly casting a guiding light for all em-
ployers to follow into a new era in which individual competence, not age, deter-
mines how long a person is allowed to work.
Because your committees were planning to conduct this more comprehensive
review of the foreign service system in 1979, H.R. 5383 did not include the
service. Tragically, every day that this exemption continues, qualified Foreign
Service officers who reach the magic age of 60 are rewarded for their long
service by being thrown out of their jobs.
The main focus of the Foreign Service Act you are now considering is to
make greater use of performance on the job. For example, promotions would
be based on merit and continued service would be dependent on meeting a
quality standard in carrying out duties. I fully support these efforts to reward
meritorious service and weed out those who are inadequate employees but it
would be totally inconsistent to apply criteria of merit to Foreign Service offi-
cers who are under age 60 while maintaining the arbitrary age 60 rule for
mandatory retirement. If competence and skill are important and can be taken
into account with employees who are 30, 40, and 59, how can they be disregarded
the moment a Foreign Service officer reaches age 60.
Conditions abroad are not always ideal but it is ludicrous to believe that a
person loses his or her ability to cope with these stresses and strains or to
function competently because of these conditions the instant they turn 60.
What makes this even more intolerable is that other employees of our govern-
ment who work abroad are not subject to this age discrimination. Right now
this Nation is represented by a 76-year-old Ambassador, Mike Mansfield in
Japan, and 68-year-old Leonard Woodcock is our Ambassador to China.
There are also many civil service employees in .agencies like the Agriculture
Department or the General Accounting Office who work outside the United
States but are not subject to mandatory retirement because they are not in
the Foreign Service. It is absurd that two employees-one in the civil service
and one in the Foreign Service-could work next to each other overseas, per-
form comparable jobs, and live under similar conditions until they are 60 when
the Foreign Service employee is automatically fired and his civil service coun-
terpart continues to serve as long as he can perform the job.
The State Department has testified of their concern for an adequate attrition
rate in the senior ranks of the Foreign Service to "make room" for the advance-
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ment of talented younger persons. We are all aware of the problems that could
be created in an agency in which job advancement is limited. However, manda-
tory retirement based solely on age is not an acceptable method of achieving
this. Ageism is as odious as racism or sexism, and nobody is entitled to move
into a qualified worker's job just because they are younger.
It is time to stop sacrificing older workers on the altar of increased attrition
and career advancement for the young. It is time to firmly reject the outdated
stereotypes that form the basis for mandatory retirement. If there ever was
a rational basis for forcing Foreign Service retirement at age 60, it no longer
exists. Therefore and most respectfully, I strongly urge you to take this into
account and to rid the Foreign Service system of the last vestiges of age
discrimination.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We will be delighted to welcome him.
Mr. GLAZER. If I could just take a few minutes
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If you could move the microphone over, it would
help.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH GLAZER, INTERNATIONAL
COMMUNICATION AGENCY
Mr. GLAZER. I will just take a few minutes, since I know everyone
has to run to other hearings.
I thank Congressman Pepper, because as a young man, I heard him
talk eloquently on the Senate floor. As he grows older, like good violins
and good wine, Congressman, you get better with age.
Mr. PEPPER. Thank you.
Mr. GLAZER. I would just like to speak very briefly as a Foreign
Service officer and one who is over 60 who managed to get here by a
combination of car and subway without too much difficulty.
Mr. PEPPER. Would you excuse me, Madame Chairwoman? I have
to run to a Rules Committee meeting.
Mr. GLAZER. I would like to take a few minutes to tell you a story of
one or two people who have been affected by this rule.
Once a great architect said that God is in the details, and instead of
giving you a lot of numbers and speaking generally, I would just like
to tell you the story of one man who was affected by this 60-year ruling
and see if this makes sense in 1979.
Just the other day when they asked me did I know some people
affected by this rule of 60, I talked to a few people who had been-
I don't want to say executed, but eliminated from the Foreign Service
immediately, and others who had been forced to convert back to a
general service status which permitted them to work to 70 and if they
like, beyond, and one of the administrators in the office came up to me
and said, 2 days before he reached 60, he was called in and told, you are
finished; you have to retire.
However, since he had been previously a general service employee,
magically, he could convert. The only problem was, he would have to
drop $5,000 or $6,000 in salary. I said, did you do a different job? No,
the same job, exactly the same job. He had to take the $5,000 or $6,000
out, because he hit the magic age of 60.
I said, maybe they didn't like you because you were not so good. He
said, here are my ratings. You know, the Foreign Service and the
general services every year rate the employees. They decide if you are
good, superior, no good, should we promote you, are you eligible for
an award, are you doing any useful service for your Government,
at cetera.
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I will read you one or two lines from this gentleman's ratings :
"Superior honor award. Sustained outstanding leadership and per-
formance as the agency's administrative services officer. Another
agency honor award. Qualified for a position at the GS-16 level." This
is a man who had been a GS-15 for 20 years.
At the urging of the agency, he became a Foreign Service officer,
just a change in classification. When he reached 60, they said Foreign
Service officers are no good any more, you go out. However, since he
had been a GS-15, you can convert. However, now the job you are on
is only a GS-14, and you have to take a $5,000 cut. Here is another
rating. Isn't this the kind of person that is needed in the Government?
One of the stalwarts in the Office of Administration, a thoroughly dedicated,
competent, intelligent government executive who can handle almost any senior
administrative job in Washington. We hope he continues to be happy in his
present job, since we need him there.
Several years ago, this gentleman had been offered a GS-16 in one
of the other agencies. He checked with his people, and they said, no,
you stay here. One of these days you will be a 16, because you are as
good as any 16. Then he changed to Foreign Service officer. He hit 60.
Bam ! He had to take a GS-14 if he didn't want to retire.
He handled many complicated reorganization plans. Now we talk
about reorganization, and one of the reorganizations occurred when
the International Communication Agency was founded. It was a
merger of the old USIA with part of the State Department. Now,
many of you Congressmen know that many times reorganization
becomes disorganization, and when an agenecy is reorganized, it is
sometimes worse than it had been before.
This gentleman was in charge of reorganizing 500 people, 50 differ-
ent job classifications, getting furniture, space, telephones, and so on
and so forth. All the ratings say he did a masterful job. Then his life
changed because he hit the magic number-60.
Well, we could go on all the way like this. This gentleman used to
have low blood pressure. He has got high blood pressure. He can't
sleep nights. He has got two kids in college. He is trying to figure out
what he is going to do.
I am going to close now. Most important of all, this gentleman says,
look, I know there are guys in the Government who are lazy on the
job; they goof off; they should have been fired when they were 35.
Perhaps they never should have been hired ; they should have been
fired at 50 or 55.
But this is my record, he says. I am a dedicated civil servant. When I
got out of Harvard, he says, I wanted to work for the Government in
public service. Two days before I am 60, I get thrown out. It just so
happens he was able to transfer. But others did not have that possibil-
ity. He says, is this right? Is this just? And he appealed to the direc-
tor, and he was told they will take a look at it. But they don't want to
make any exceptions. They don't want to open the door to the old,
doddering men of 60 who have just done tremendous jobs for the
agencies, similar to the pilot that Congressman Pepper mentioned.
I have just gone into one case, but I could name many others, others
who were actually thrown out or eliminated. The other fellow who was
supposed to testify here was retired at 60 and is looking for a job.
Maybe he had an appointment and could not come here.
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My boss, a very, very vigorous man who has served in Australia
and Germany and Japan will be out on his heels in 2 or 3 months
looking for a job or trying to figure out how to work it out to live on
his pension. It just does not make any sense at all.
I was a Foreign Service officer, and I will close with these few
lines. I am sitting at a desk doing a job as a Foreign Service officer,
grade 3, because I had come in laterally. I had a choice of converting.
I converted to a GS, and they said, well, the job that you are on is
a GS-13, that means a $6,000 cut. The same title, the same job, the
same office, the same boss, the same secretary, the same title. The guys
asked me, how is your new job going? I said, the only thing new about
it is the fact that I hit 60 and 1 got a $6,000 cut.
They said, well, that is crazy. It is crazy, but that is the law unless
Congress changes it. Thank you very much.
Mr. FASCELL. It is time to change at least that part, Mr. Glazer.
Let's get something on the record before you leave. I want to thank
you for showing up with Congressman Claude Pepper. How long
were you in Government?
Mr. GLAZER. Twenty years. I want to make it clear I am still with
the Government. I had a choice of retiring but decided to stay on
for several years, even though it meant a pay cut.
Mr. FASCELL. Where are you now?
Mr. GLAZER. I am with the old U.S. Information Agency, now the
International Communication Agency, and I am known as a program
development officer in the Division of Social and Political Processes.
What that means is, we send people like Congressmen and profes-
sors overseas, to lecture on the United States, to help people under-
stand our country a little better.
Mr. FASCELL. With that title, I would be suspicious. [General
laughter.]
How long have you been over there?
Mr. GLAZER. In that job?
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
Mr. GLAZER. In that particular job, I have been there 4 or 5 years.
Before that, I had other jobs.
Mr. FASCELL. How did you transfer over there? There wasn't any
problem?
Mr. GLAZER. I was about 58
Mr. FASCELL. Age is no problem over in that agency?
Mr. GLAZER. None at all. If you are a Foreign Service officer and
happen to be there, you get out. If the guy next to you is a general
service officer doing the same job in that particular agency, he can
stay on, in many jobs.
Mr. FASCELL. Under the present law, are you a Foreign Service
officer or did you convert? Obviously the age requirement does not
apply to you.
Mr. GLAZER. I was forced to convert if I wanted to stay on the job.
I could have retired at 60. But my pension would have been about 30
percent of my current salary, so I decided to stay on.
Mr. FASCELL. I see. Have you gone up in grade so as to catch up
with your salary?
Mr. GLAZER. No.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the largest number of people you ever had
under your supervision?
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Mr. GLAZER. Well, I don't have a large number of people under my
supervision.
Mr. FASCELL. One, two, three?
Mr. GLAZER. Well, let's see. Three. That is all.
Mr. FASCELL. I will ask it a different way then. Did you ever fire any-
body in your entire Federal service?
Mr. GLAZER. There was one secretary who was quite incompetent and
we had to recommend that she be fired.
Mr. FASCELL. Did you have any difficulty? Were there any appeals
or court suits?
Mr. GLAZER. Oh, yes, it was appealed.
Mr. FASCELL. How long did it take you to fire the secretary?
M. GLAZER. It took several years.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Derwinski.
Mr. DERWINSKI. No questions.
Mr. FASCELL. Are you guys all right? [General laughter.]
Mr. BUCHANAN. I have nothing.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Glazer.
I suppose the record would be replete with many horror stories if you
took it on a case-by-case basis, but we appreciate your vivid descrip-
tions. We are seeking to eliminate inequities and, certainly, the one that
has been raised by Senator Pepper is one that we will have to consider
very carefully.
Thank you very much.
Mr. GLAZER. I just wanted to point out that there are many inequities.
Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The next witness this morning is Alan Campbell-
we are delighted to have you with us this morning-the Director of the
Office of Personnel Management. I welcome you, and I am delighted to
have you with us. We are looking forward to your helping us with this
bill.
STATEMENT OF HON. ALAN K. CAMPBELL, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
. Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, Mr.
Chairman, and members of the two subcommittees.
I am pleased to have this opportunity.
Mr. FASCELL. Could you please pull that mike up?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. Thank you.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the Foreign
Service Act of 1979. The Office of Personnel Management's interest
and activities in relation to the Foreign Service personnel system have
been historically very broad. Through Executive Order 11434, we have
significant responsibilities for advising the Secretary of State and
the Director of ICA.
In addition, we are represented on the Board of Foreign Service
and the Board of Examiners for the Foreign Service. These contacts
have meant that the staff of the Civil Service Commission participated
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in the earliest formulative stages of the plan to reorganize the Depart-
ment's personnel system, and OPM has been consulted frequently in
the final stages of development.
We have provided comments and assistance to those working on
the plan, and we believe the proposed legislation before you represents
not only significant change, but a step forward for the Service.
The Foreign Service Act of 1979 would, in many respects, parallel
the Civil Service Reform Act. Certainly, 'the impact on the Service
will be comparable to the impact which the Civil Service Reform Act
is having and will have on the civil service.. I know that you have
been introduced to this bill by Secretary Vance and others who have
preceded me. Rather than run the gamut of this wide-ranging piece of
reform legislation, I will concentrate on those things which we are
particularly pleased to see in this proposal or about which we have
some questions.
First, the Department of State, AID, and ICA have recognized
the need for a continuing and stable civil service component. The
eventual savings, which will be brought about by clearly distinguishing
between employees whose duties do not include overseas service and
those who do, will be significant.
The Foreign Service personnel system is designed to give flexibilities
and benefits to a worldwide service requiring mobility and hardship
assignments and as such has a unique and important place in the array
of Federal personnel systems. The attempt to adapt that system to
jobs which did not carry the same requirements produced a great deal
of difficulty and inequities. The proposed legislation requires conver-
sion of employees who do not serve overseas and allows a painless
transition by providing for no loss in pay or benefits as a result of
conversion. We give our full support to the Department in its wish
to make a clean start and support the Department in seeking authority
to allow retention -of Foreign Service benefits for those converted to
the civil service.
We believe an addition should be made to section 2104(b) to clarify
that the retention of coverage under the Foreign Service retirement sys-
tem shall not extend to employees after transfer to another agency.
We recognized that this was open to interpretation after the bill
cleared the executive branch. However, without this limitation, those
converted would be advantaged over those who had not converted
by being able to transfer to non-foreign affairs agencies while staying
in the Foreign Service retirement system.
The Foreign Service was specifically excluded from the Senior
Executive Service in the Civil Service Reform Act. We warmly en-
dorse the Department's proposal to establish a Senior Foreign Serv-
ice, which has many features that parallel those of the Senior Ex-
ecutive Service. We particularly note that the Senior Foreign Serv-
ice proposal will hold members accountable for their performance
and reward those whose performance is outstanding.
We recognize that there are special conditions that affect personnel
who have to serve overseas and that, therefore, it may not be practical
to establish a Senior Foreign Service fully comparable to the Senior
Executive Service which, as the members of this subcommittee know,
became operational on July 13. We see the two systems as comple-
mentary, however.
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There is a strong emphasis in the bill on the improvement of inter-
agency coordination, as for example, through greater consultation
among the foreign affairs agencies. We have long recognized a need
for closer ties between the personnel regulations of the foreign af-
fairs agencies. We have noted differences in the approaches between
agencies which are both justified and unjustified. We, therefore, view
it as a major goal to bring the personnel policies of the various For-
eign Service agencies into closer conformity so that neither manage-
ment nor the members of the Service will be disadvantaged by the
existence of unwarranted differences.
Bringing compatibility to the personnel systems of the three for-
eign affairs agencies is one of the most important advisory roles of
the Board of the Foreign Service which will be established in statute
with OPM representation under section 206 of the proposed bill. The
Board of Foreign Service has worked toward this end on many oc-
casions in the past. The Board allows executive level management to
influence personnel policy and, thus, is right in step with the objec-
tives of civil service reform.
Having touched these high points, I should note that OPM has
had a concern related to the inclusion of supervisors in the bargain-
ing unit. Title X differs from title VII of the Civil Service Reform
Act which states that a unit does not appropriately include-except
as provided under section 7135(a) (2) -any management official or
supervisor. We have generally thought it inappropriate to have any
managers or supervisors within the bargaining unit. I recognize, how-
ever, that there are historical differences in the Foreign Service
situation which the Congress may wish to take into account. I simply
would not want action in this field to be regarded as indicative of the
Congress views on other Federal personnel systems.
Another problem which we continue to have with the proposal
relates to the employment of family members abroad. The authority
of the Secretary, in section 333(c), to "prescribe regulations for the
guidance of all agencies regarding the employment at posts abroad of
family members of Government personnel," goes beyond the Foreign
Service.
We believe OPM should retain regulatory authority in this area for
employment in agencies such as DOD. We realize that the sectional
analysis states that these regulations shall be advisory and designed
to set forth uniform standards and criteria. However, the draft lan-
guage does not make clear that the regulations are "advisory," nor
does it recognize the legitimate role of the Office of Personnel Manage-
ment in regulating employment outside of the Foreign Service.
Section 701 (b) of the draft bill provides authority for functional
training to family members in-anticipation of their assignment abroad
or while abroad. We read this authority as extending to family mem-
bers of employees of non-Foreign Service agencies. We therefore
endorse the provision with the understanding that family members of
employees of all Federal agencies operating overseas will have access
to available functional training in order to avoid favoring family
members of 'one agency over those of others.
Despite the questions I have raised, this legislation has my positive
support. I think it will contribute materially to the conduct of foreign
affairs while affording proper consideration to the needs of employees.
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This concludes my prepared statement, Madam Chairwoman. I
shall be glad to try to answer any questions of the committee members.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very, very much. Again, we appreciate
having you here and helping us with this incredible task that we have
undertaken. It seems like we have really gotten into personnel maybe
more than we ever thought we would.
I have a lot of questions, and I suppose one of the things that we
should start with is : Why isn't there a need for a separate Foreign
Service? Just a very basic question.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I have become convinced after spending a great deal
of time on this matter that the conditions of employment in terms
of requirements placed on that service does justify a separate Foreign
Service. On the other hand, we obviously are pleased that those people
who do not have those obligations of overseas assignments and lack
of choice in terms of where assigned will be now removed from the
Foreign Service, and there will be a two-part personnel system in
our foreign affairs agencies. It seems to me that that is the important
contribution which this legislation will make, after having been down
the road for some years, as you know, attempting to create one unified
service for all people who work for a foreign affairs agency.
My experience has demonstrated, as well as some of the testimony
which preceded me, the inadequacies of that kind of effort.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Would you say the concepts like ranking a person
or selection out are equally applicable to Foreign Service and to do-
mestic service?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I think the applicability of those special provisions
apply with special force to the Foreign Service, because of the nature
of their assignments. I would argue that in the case of the top levels
of the senior executive service, that some of those provisions are equally
applicable there, that is, rank-in-person and some of the other provi-
sions, but basically it is the difference in the kind of service demands
that are placed upon the personnel, which I believe justifies the sepa-
rate service as well as the historical pattern.
One cannot ignore what has been the case in the past.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. On page 2 of your statement, you say that con-
verted FAS employees should use their right to Foreign Service re-
tirement. Could you explain that?
Mr. CAMPBELL. We are talking here about people who are converted
to the general schedule, and we are saying that if they stay with our
foreign affairs agencies, that their Foreign Service retirement cover-
age should continue because those were the conditions under which
they were hired.
If, on the other diand, they move to a non-foreign affairs agency, it
seems to us that they should then convert, which they easily can, to
tho regular civil service retirement system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I guess the other question is, can you justify pre-
serving earlier retirement rights for people who never served over-
seas and converted to FAS?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I think it can be justified only in terms of the sense
of a contractual relationship in that they are now a part of that sys-
tem, anticipated being in it all their lives, and to change that, we
believe, would be inequitable.
Beyond that, there is no justification.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Last year we were going through all the Civil
Service Reform Act legislation. You had said that there had been
orfly about 226 Federal employees that were fired on performance
grounds in the previous 12 months. That was one of the reasons for
civil service reform. It would allow managers more flexibility to
fire incompetent employees. I am wondering if you have been able
to compare that at all with the selection out procedure for Foreign
Service and find out whether it worked significantly better than the
adverse action that we have in civil service.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I would not be able to provide you numbers in my
response to your question. We would be glad to provide that informa-
tion for the record. I would say, though, that the selection out provi-
sion is not directly related to inadequacies of performance in the way
that adverse actions are in the general schedule. I would simply sug-
gest there are different standards involved.
I would anticipate that the selection out system produced propor-
tionately more early retirements than is true of adverse action in the
general schedule, but that is without having numbers in front of me.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If we could have those numbers for the record, I
think that might be helpful as we look at this.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Surely.
[The information referred to follows:]
While 226 separations for inefficiency represents approximately one-ten-hun-
dredth of a percent of nonprobationary competitive service positions or about 1
in every 10,000, the average rate of selection out for Foreign Service officers in
the Department of State has averaged, over the 10-year period of 1969 to 1978,
1 out of every 96 subject to selection out or approximately 1 percent. The raw
figures show that an average of 35 Foreign Service officers have been selected
out over the 10-year period of an average 3.345 who were subject to selection out.
During that period 71 percent of the selection outs were under the time-in-class
provision while 29 percent were selected out for substandard performance.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If I could also ask you if OPM has made any
efforts to provide employment for spouses of Foreign Service officers
when they return and are on temporary assignment in Washington.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I do not know of any special programs we have for
doing that. Obviously, the information would be provided through
the general means by which one acquires Federal employment. Beyond
that, I am not aware that we have made any special efforts.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think I would like to plead with you to try and
make some special efforts. I know that you have said there is a prob-
lem with section 333 (c) in dealing with the family members in foreign
posts.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. Our only concern here is if the State Depart-
ment provides training-which we strongly urge them to do and which
they are doing-so that it would increase the possibility of spouses
finding employment overseas, that such training programs be avail-
able to families of employees working for other agencies. We have
discussed that, in fact, just very recently, and the State Department
agrees with us that that is appropriate ?and will attempt to do so.
[The following information was subsequently provided:]
Our concern here is that many employees of the Defense Department, for
example, are serving 'overseas in non-foreign affairs agencies. We believe that it is
inappropriate that the 'State Department make rules and regulations related to
employees of other departments and agencies. This is a responsibility that the
central personnel agency of the Federal Government has had and should continue
to have.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. I sincerely hope we can implore you to also look at
helping the spouses who are here in Washington on rotation.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I certainly hear you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. Derwinski, do you have any questions?
Mr. DERWINsKI. Could you point out for us what provisions in the
bill before us could be attributed to your early consultation and what
specific input in the bill is therefore related to civil service reform?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I am not certain whether our impact was correct on
these matters I am going to mention or incorrect just because they were
a part of the Civil Service Reform Act, but there is no question that the
Senior Foreign Service is molded after the Senior Executive Service,
as are the special benefits in terms of bonuses and the like.
In addition to that, the prohibited personnel practices are taken
almost directly from the Civil Service Reform Act, and thereby those
prohibited practices are the same throughout the two personnel sys-
tems. Although there are some distinctions in the labor relations sys-
tem, the provisions in the Foreign Service Act of 1979 parallel in many
respects title VII, the difference there being primarily the inclusion
of some managers and supervisors on the Foreign Service side which
are excluded as far as the Civil Service Reform Act is concerned.
The merit pay provisions of the Civil Service Reform Act for 13's
through 15's was, after much consideration, not followed in the For-
eign Service Act, although a substitute of a greater emphasis on per-
formance for in-grade step increases is a part of the legislation, and to
that extent is followed.
I must say that I am very pleased with the amount of parallel that
there is between the two pieces of legislation. I am hopeful that as a
result of the careful consideration given by the people in the State
Department in seeing the merit of what the House Post Office and
Civil Service Committee and others did in the passage of the Civil
Service Reform Act your committees will give favorable consideration
to this legislative proposal.
Mr. DERwiNsKI. What is your basic view on the mandatory retire-
ment provision for Foreign Service?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I believe a strong case can be made for the manda-
tory retirement for those who are genuinely in the Foreign Service.
That is that they respond to all of the demands of that service, and for
that reason I think it is particularly useful that we clearly dis-
tinguish those jobs in the State Department which do not have those
characteristics.
I would point out that the specific example given by Mr. Glazer of
the fact that he had to move from a Foreign Service rank to a GS
position that was greatly lower, is an example of the difficulty of
having the two systems operate side by side. The fact is that with rank-
in-person there is a great deal of freedom of jobs to which you can
assign a person. When it became necessary to move to the general
schedule, then the actual position classification becomes the important
consideration, and that was clearly a] ob ' as the situation was described,
meriting a grade 13. Since the Foreign Service system is a rank-in-per-
son system, assigning him to that job was completely appropriate, but
it does show the difficulties in operating two systems when there is not
a clear distinction as to the obligations of the two systems.
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I would point out-and the State Department has this data more
at their fingertips than I do-that there are serious problems, as people
grow older, in their ability to accept assignments as required by the
Foreign Service. As you look at the percentages as you go up the
scale to age 50, you see that 50 percent, due to health conditions, family
conditions, and the like, became difficult to assign abroad. So it may
be that the age 60 cutoff is somewhat arbitrary, but I would suggest
that empirical evidence points in the direction that it is a pretty good
guide.
Mr. DERWINSKi. On that specific point, there isn't anything scien-
tific about it, about the age 60 cutoff. They just may as well have been
59 or 61.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I agree with that. The fact is that all one has to rely
on is the empirical experience of those who operate within the system.
I would further make a point that the retirement system for Foreign
Service officers is somewhat more generous than the general civil
service retirement system.
Mr. DERWINSKI. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Fascell.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Madame Chairperson.
You express a concern, Mr. Campbell, about section 333(c), which
is language that the subcommittee wrote. I can assure you that it was
our intention that it be strictly advisory and not preempt the re-
sponsibilities of OPM in any way. We will either make that clear by
changing the language or whatever it takes to satisfy that viewpoint
of yours.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I appreciate it very much.
Mr. FASCELL. We appreciate your calling it to our attention.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. To get away from the purely mathematical limita-
tion on employment, even though empirical evidence would suggest
that it might be useful to do it that way, it seems that we ought to
consider other criteria which are more acceptable. I think that is the
point that has been made by the chairman of the Select Committee
on Aging and others.
For example, I am not sure anybody can really object to a health
requirement in those positions which clearly call for a health check.
How about other functional provisions? You mentioned, for ex-
ample, the requirement of the Foreign Service officer to take posts
overseas. Now, if the individual elects not to take such a post, re-
gardless of age, it seems that you could apply the same criteria and
solve that problem.
Mr. CAMPBELL. It is certainly possible that one could attempt to
define, and I would urge that it be done with great care, the kinds of
conditions which would entitle a person to remain or which would
require a person to retire. I think that the experience with the 60-year
mandatory retirement with the Secretary of State being able to make
exceptions to it is in some way equivalent to that. The real question
is, which side do you want to put the burden of proof on?
Here I would simply suggest that I at least, and I am sure the
committee would, too, listen very carefully to the experience of the
State Department in this regard. They are closer to it than I am and
feel very strongly about the need for this kind of provision.
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Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Campbell, are you familiar with the Hay Associ-
ates study?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I have not read the study. My staff has pointed out
that that study has been done. There is an.OMB, OPM, State, ICA,
and AID task force currently examining the findings. There are
some problems with it in relationship to the number of positions cov-
ered and the range of positions covered, as I understand it. It will,
however, along with some further studies, be given careful considera-
tion by both OMB and OPM.
Mr. LEACH. Are you prepared to support it?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Not until I know a great deal more about it than
I do now and we have had an opportunity to examine it. On the basis
of that review and other data, we will be ready, in due time to make
an appropriate recommendation in the pay area for the Foreign
Service.
Mr. LEACH. I have often been concerned that it is very difficult
sometimes to relate Government jobs with the private sector, but cer-
tainly there are many problems in comparing Foreign Service jobs
with the private sector. That is what the Hay Associates study does.
But it does seem to me to be very simple to relate Foreign Service
pay to civil service pay, and, thereby, to relate comparable people
with comparable people. In that sense it thus strikes me that a funda-
mental principle that ought to be carried out is the equivalency of
Foreign Service pay to civil service pay. Does that strike you as
reasonable?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes; I will accept that.
Mr. LEACH. In that regard, I hope you will look carefully at this
issue. I do not know if it is by accident or for whatever reason, but
the Hay Associates study relating to the private sector arrives at about
the same number of percentage points in relationship to the Foreign
Service system as with the civil service system. Particularly in the
Foreign Service system you have smaller step increases in compari-
son to the civil service. You also have slower promotions, although
that may or may not continue if there is mandatory retirement.
Let me ask you, you do support mandatory retirement for the
Foreign Service?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I do support mandatory retirement for the Foreign
Service.
Mr. LEACH. One of the interesting features in comparing the SFS
and the SES is that in the proposed SFS there is a mandatory feature
whereby the Foreign Service officer must propose himself for selec-
tion, at which point a time period is triggered in which he must then
retire or be promoted.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Right.
Mr. LEACH. Do you support the notion of having a Foreign Service
officer personally make this decision to propose himself, and second,
is there an analogy to the SES in that regard?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Answering the second part of the question first,
there is no question that candidates for the Senior Executive Service
must make a decision to become a candidate. Now, you do not have
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any of the triggering mechanisms and so forth after that fact, but the
choice is in the hands of the person who is seeking that.
Mr. LEACH. The triggering mechanism?
Mr. CAMPBELL. We do not have a triggering mechanism, and that
triggering mechanism 'in the Foreign Service is a product of the gen-
eral Foreign Service System, which is an up-or-out system, and I
would say that as long as you have that as part of the system, that it
should apply to promotion or the Senior Foreign Service in the same
way that it applies to other promotions within that Service.
Mr. LEACH. I understand that, but I am not sure your answer is
specific. One of the hardships of the proposal, at least in the psycho-
logical sense, is that the person has to choose to be considered for
promotion; at that point the question of time comes into effect. I am
yet to be persuaded that there is any reason for that. I do not see why
any or all people who have reached a certain level ought not to be
eligible for promotion. Each officer must make that decision, but why
do you need the triggering mechanism at the point that they make
that decision?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I realize full well your expertise about the Foreign
Service, and I must admit that I have not thought carefully about
that question. I suggest when a person reaches that stage in their
career where they become eligible, it should be automatic.
Mr. LEACH. Eligibility should become automatic without a penalty.
That means there should be a time-in-class for that person if they do
not achieve the SES or SFS. I am not sure why the time-in-class
should be triggered by the personal decision to want to be considered
for promotion.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I would suppose that is in a sense seen as favoring
the Foreign Service officer, because they have the choice of not com-
peting for the Senior Foreign Service, and as such protect themselves
from whatever that may involve. I would suggest that that is done
as a way of providing an additional protection against what will be
a highly competitive group for the Senior Foreign Service. Whether
that is an appropriate protection I will leave to you to argue with the
Secretary of State.
Mr. LEACH. May I ask-and you do make recommendations to the
Department of State-were there any recommendations of yours
which were not accepted?
Mr. CAMPBELL. The only place where, after much consultation and
discussion, we did not reach an absolute final agreement-although
I became convinced that the special character of the system justified
it-was in the inclusion of managers and supervisors in the bargain-
ing unit.
Mr. LEACH. Do you feel that an employee organization ought to be
able to negotiate on such matters as time-in-class, the number of con-
tract extensions for the senior ranks and related matters?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I would hesitate to respond to those specific matters,
because my general position is that there should not be the opportunity
of negotiating over what I consider management decisions. I would
think that, in relationship to some of the kinds of general questions
that you have raised, that there may be appropriateness for some of
them to be negotiated, but I would be very careful that in that process,
the necessity for maintaining managers' flexibility not be undermined.
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Mr. LEACH. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Pashayan.
Mr. PASHAYAN. Why are concepts such as a person being selected
out for excess time-in-class and performance work uniquely applicable
to the Foreign Service system and inapplicable to the domestic service
system?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I have been repeating a bit in response to Chair-
woman Schroeder's question. The distinctions really relate to character
of service, the fact that it does have special requirements, the overseas
obligations, the fact of not being able to select posts, being assigned
to posts; all of those, it seems to me, require the very special set of
conditions relative to that kind of very special service.
Mr. PASxAYAx. Let me ask one more question, and then I will be
done. Apparently a number of elements of the Senior Foreign Service
are different than the senior executive service, such as the absence of
a parachute clause, the existence of a window for entry, and, I suppose,
the decreased emphasis on managerial aspects of the Service.
Do any of these differences portend of potential problems?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I do not think so. They are differences which really
are a product of the nature of the Foreign Service system. The lack of
parachute rights relates to the up or out provisions of the Foreign
Service. I think a parachute in that kind of system would be inappro-
priate. In relationship to the other matters, they, too, are drawn from
what are the characteristics of the total system, but I am more
impressed with the similarities than I am with the differences, and
there are aspects of those similarities which I think are going to make
a very useful contribution to, for example, interchange between the
domestic and Foreign Service sides which I believe will add important
things to both sides of that equation. The use of bonuses for perform-
ance is, I believe, important in the Foreign Service, where I think per-
formance should be measured just as it is measured in other kinds of
high-level jobs.
So, my satisfaction grows out of the similarities, and I do not feel
that the differences in any way undermine those similarities, and the
value of those similarities.
Mr. PASHAYAN. I guess I have attempted to ask yet one more
question.
Mr. CAMPBELL. All right.
Mr. PASHAYAN. What is your opinion, subject to supervisor's
opinion?
Mr. CAMPBELL. As I have said, we had problems with that from the
beginning. In consultations with the State Department, I became con-
vinced that there are sufficient differences between the role of super-
visors in the Foreign Service versus the general schedule side, and it
one examines the history of it, it justifies that difference.
Let me just add one point to the special characteristics in Foreign
Service. As I understand it, many of the people who have supervisory,
managerial responsibility in the Foreign Service do not have many
of the kinds of decisionmaking powers that is true in the competitive
service. They do not have many of the personnel powers that managers
have on the civilian side in terms of hiring, firing, promoting, much
of which is done centrally in the Foreign Service.
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Those differences would justify a difference in treatment. I would
like to repeat what I said in my testimony. I hope we do not take this
as a model for any other Federal personnel systems in terms of the
labor-management relations system.
Mr. PASHAYAN. One more last question. This will be last of the last
questions. In that we do not know yet how well performance pay
worked in the SES, is it a good idea to place the thrust on the SFS?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I am confident that the performance pay system for
the senior executive service will work well. I am obviously encouraged
as I know the committee people here from the Post Office and Civil
Service Committee are, that over 95 percent of those eligible for the
senior executive service have elected to join it, which is in very sharp
contrast to what was predicted during part of the time we were debat-
ing this issue.
I must say that I foresee more problems with the merit pay part of
our proposals for grades 13 through 15 than I see for the performance
bonus system for the senior executive service.,
Mr. PASHAYAN. Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That leads me immediately into, then, are you dis-
appointed there is no merit pay provision in this bill?
Mr. CAMPBELL. As I said earlier in my testimony, we would like to
see merit pay in that part of the Foreign Service system. However, we
are satisfied with the intent for greater use of the within-grade step
increases as a means of beginning what we hope is in the direction of
using merit pay in that part of the Foreign Service system. I believe
getting the experience that we are going to get on the merit pay side
will be very useful to the State Department 2 or 3 years down, the
road when they make a decision whether they are going to take that
additional step. We are deep into establishing critical elements and
performance.appraisal as a backup for merit pay, and we are impressed
by the enormity of the task that we have .taken on.
I hope that as we learn, our lessons can be applied if the State
Department decides they wish to move in that direction.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So you hope they will become enlightened later on?
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I just want to go a little further on this whole ques-
tion of supervisors in the bargaining unit. I am not quite sure about it,
and this is going to be a thing that will be very difficult for this com-
mittee, because we have had testimony both ways.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am not sure whether I hear you saying that it is
not your area. So, politically you would just as soon not get into it
and defer by saying that, historically in the State Department it has
been allowed, so leave it there, but do not make it a precedent. Or
are you really saying it is a good idea in the State Department but for
no other agency?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I guess that I would argue that what I am saying
is some place in the middle of that. There is a particular management
characteristic in the Foreign Service; many supervisors do not have
the full range of authority that supervisors and managers traditionally
have in the rest of the Government service. On the basis of that dif-
ference, I believe that the inclusion of supervisors in the bargaining
unit does not raise the usual kinds of problems that it would in a
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system where there was greater managerial authority, particularly
in the making of personnel decisions, which after all is what labor
relations is primarily about, especially when pay is the question.
We are also mindful of the fact that some managers are excluded
under the proposal based on their decisionmaking authority.
So, I am comfortable that the system as outlined in the legislation
is workable and appropriate. I just want to be very sure that the
record shows that we have a very strong position that management and
supervisory people in general should not be included within bargain-
ing units. We do happen to have a couple of exceptions in the Civil
Service Reform Act which we were not very happy about, either.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I realize that. As I say, we are just trying to con-
struct the best of all possible worlds. I don't know if it would be a
good idea to substitute the Civil Service Reform Act for the bill be-
fore us. I can understand why you really hate to go one way or the
other, but I think you have been helpful in trying to say where you
were.
Now, when the Secretary of State issues regulations for civil service
employees, what kind are they going to be, and is that going to under-
mine any of OPM's authority?
Mr. CAMPBELL. No, I don't think so, if we are talking about the
general schedule people. There will be an arrangement worked out
whereby uniformity, where necessary, will be accomplished.
I would, however, quickly make the further point that we are in
the process, as you well know, of a substantial delegation of person-
nel authority for decisionmaking to departments and agencies, and
within that context the State Department's role in this regard is be-
coming increasingly like what we hope will be characteristic of the
total system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So, you won't turn over the whole thing?
Mr. CAMPBELL. No.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It would be very similar to other agencies.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Fascell.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much.
There is a provision now pending in the conference on the economic
assistance bill to provide for appointment of former Peace Corps staff
to the competitive service without examination. Do you see any reason
why that benefit would be in conflict with what we are trying to do in
this bill?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I am sorry. The first part is that there would be the
opportunity for noncompetitive hiring.
Mr. FASCELL. No, I am referring to noncompetitive appointment to
the civil service for former Peace Corps staff, similar to procedures
now in effect for volunteers.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I am going to, if I may, respond to that question
in writing, because it does have some serious implications, and I want
to be certain that I check with the right people on it. I am concerned,
I am always concerned about automatic conversion systems, and there-
fore I would like the opportunity to check.
Mr. FASCELL. I would appreciate it if you would check that. The
staff can give you the exact language that is now in conference. Since
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to act on that in the next day or two, we need to know
we are going
what relationship that provision has to this bill.
Mr. CAMPBELL. We will get that to you just as soon as we can, and
certainly before the conference committee takes final action.
[The information referred to follows:]
While various groups have been granted noncompetitive entry, there appears
to be no compelling reason why this group should be accorded the privilege :
1. Together with Department of State, we reported against a similar provision
to OMB last March.
2. The noncompetitive entry accorded to Peace Corps volunteers was a recogni-
tion of their dedication and talents, the vigorous screening they underwent, and
the difficult conditions overseas under which they worked at subsistence pay
levels. It is somewhat analogous to preference-a means of readjustment, of
easing their transition back into the regular world of work. Peace Corps staff,
on the other hand, are salaried Federal employees and are not subject to the
unique demands volunteers faced.
3. Employees serving under Foreign Service limited appointments in State,
AID, and ICA do not have such a benefit.
4. Employees serving under time limited appointments in the competitive
service do not have the right to move to other jobs.
5. Peace Corps staff may file along with the general public in any of our open
competitive examinations for appointment consideration.
6. We could consider administratively granting to Peace Corps staff eligibility
to be hired noncompetitively, provided their employment system is found to meet
certain merit system principles. One condition would require an unlimited type of
appointment, analogous to our career-conditional appointment.
Mr. FASCELL. You are undertaking, as I understand it, a massive
.review of the performance evaluation system.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. It seems to me that there will be great benefit in some
kind of interdepartmental review, because State is in the process of
reviewing its performance evaluation system, and it seems to me that
State and OPM could benefit from the experience of the other.
OPM has had tremendous experience, and if you bring new talent
to bear on the subject, it would seem to be very useful at this point to
have some kind of joint review without either one impinging on the
other.
Mr. CAMPBELL. There is no question that to some extent that has
already started and will become even more intense after this legisla-
lation is passed, and the Senior Foreign Service is put into effect.
I know the State Department has a great interest in the performance
evaluation system that we are establishing for the senior executive
service.
Mr. FASCELL. It seems to me with any Government personnel system,
the biggest problem is, how do you get rid of the incompetent? The
guts of that on this system seems to be a proper or realistic or truthful
appraisal, depending on which word suits. I do not know that the
military has a better system, either. I have looked at all those criteria
and the selection from 1 to 10. I can imagine people checking off
the boxes and running out of words in the thesaurus to describe in
superior terms someone who is really incompetent.
[General laughter.]
Mr. FASCELL. The military used to have one. Maybe we ought to
adopt it in the regulations. If an individual was a great piano player,
that meant he was out. Maybe something like that would work. Thank
you very much.
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Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you very much, sir.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Derwinski, do you have any further
questions?
Mr. DERWINSKI. Mr. Campbell was so persuasive, I am left without
questions for him.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you for coming before us, sir.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Again, we appreciate all of the time that you have
given us.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much.
[Additional questions submitted to Mr. Campbell for the record
follow:]
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS SUBMITTED IN WRITING TO MR. CAMPBELL AND
RESPONSES THERETO
Question. Should the Foreign Service be included under Title VII of the Civil
Service Reform Act (CSRA) ? Why?
Answer. I believe that the Foreign Service is appropriately excluded from
Title VII. From inception of the program in 1962 until December 1971, the
Foreign Service was included under the same executive orders that governed
the Federal labor-management relations program. Experience proved, however,
that the Foreign Service, because of its unique conditions of employment, should
be under a separate executive order. Subsequently, in accordance with a Presi-
dential directive, a draft executive order was prepared. It was concurred in
by the Board of the Foreign Service, the Secretary of State, and the heads of
the other foreign affairs agencies. The Foreign Service program has operated
reasonably well as a separate entity ever since. Nothing in the Foreign Service
program suggests the need to change this arrangement. For these reasons, there
was no serious consideration given to including the Foreign Service under Title
VII during deliberations on the CSRA.
Question. What is OPM's view of the labor-management agreement Interna-
tional Communication Agency (ICA) signed with the American Federation of
Government Employees (AFGE) in December 1977 which required that all
conversions from Foreign Service domestic specialist to Civil Service status be
voluntary?
Answer. I am aware of the agreement ICA made with AFGE (Local 1812) and
can fully appreciate the circumstances under which it was agreed to. There is
no doubt in my mind that the agreement was made in good faith on the part of
ICA management with a view toward maintaining among employees a sense
of security for their jobs and benefits, as well as avoiding possible litigation.
However, in view of estimates that it would take a minimum of 20 years to
complete the conversion program if it were done voluntarily, I believe the more
desirable course is to effect such conversion through legislation, that would in
turn provide for such benefits as saved pay and grade. This would include in
particular the Foreign Service retirement provisions, as well as protection
against loss of pay. The procedures for accomplishing the conversions could,
of course, be left to consultation between the foreign affairs agencies and its
employee representatives. The statutory conversion solution is not only fair
but, we believe, preferable to a status quo situation which allows employees to
remain under a personnel system designed for overseas work when they are
not, in fact, subject to such assignment.
Question. Last year, you opposed efforts to exempt the Foreign Service from
the Senior Executive Service (SES). Does the establishment of a separate
Senior Foreign Service meet your objections?
Answer. Our original proposal for SES would have included members of the
Foreign Service. In considering the proposal, however, the Congress excluded
Foreign Service personnel from SES under 5 U.S.C. 3132(a) (2) (i).We believe
the Senior Foreign Service proposed by the Department of State is in keeping
with the basic concepts of SES, such as accountability for performance, and we
therefore support it.
Question. A foreign affairs specialist employee converted to civil service will
be protected in his or her Foreign Service retirement rights. If the bill passes as
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216
now drafted, this employee could work well past age 60, while a Foreign Service
employee would have to retire at age 60. My question is : Would this converted
employee, working past age 60, be able to add 2 percent a year onto his or her
amount of retirement?
Answer. Section 2104(b) of the draft bill allows the former Foreign Service
employee to elect to continue to participate in the Foreign Service Retirement
and Disability System. Section 836 of the draft bill requires retirement of
participants in the Foreign Service Retirement and Disability System when they
reach 60. Our discussions with State Department and Office of Management and
Budget staff have revealed no intention to except the "grandfathered" employees
from the section 836 requirement for mandatory retirement if they have chosen
to continue under Foreign Service retirement.
Question. On page 2 of your statement, you mention that "retention of coverage
under the Foreign Service Retirement System shall not extend to employees
after transfer to another agency?" By transfer, do you refer to employees
who leave the Foreign Service, not those who merely transfer on detail to another
agency?
Answer. My remarks concern only the employee who transfers out of the foreign
affairs agency on a nontenporary basis.
Question. One of the stated purposes of SES was to provide for trans-
ferability of senior executives between Government agencies. Does not the
establishment of a separate Senior Foreign Service undermine the goal of
interchangeability?
Answer. As indicated in the previous question, we initially proposed an SES
that would have included Foreign Service personnel. One of the reasons for that
proposal was the increased interchangeability such a unified system would pro-
vide. Having two separate systems, however, does not necessarily preclude inter-
changeability. The proposal for the Senior Foreign Service, for example, provides
in section 521 for the temporary assignment of Senior Foreign Service members
to SES positions for up to four years. We would be willing to consider the ap-
propriateness of permanent interchangeability between the SES and the Senior
Foreign Service.
Question. What will be the relationship between OPM and the Board of the
Foreign Service after this bill passes? Will OPM issue any regulations applicable
to the Foreign Service? What kinds of regulations?
Answer. The relationship of OPM to the Board of the Foreign Service is not
expected to change under the bill. The Director of OPM is designated a member
of the Board of Foreign Service under Executive Order 11264. We have developed
significant expertise and familiarity with the Foreign Service system in order
to add weight and significance to our representation. We hope that the Board of
the Foreign Service will continue an active role in advising the Secretary on the
operation of the Foreign Service system.
Under the proposed Foreign Service Act, the Foreign Service will continue
as a separate personnel system, exempt from most OPM regulations. Significant
exemptions are in the areas of staffing, position classification, retirement, and
adverse actions. The Foreign Service does come under OPM's regulations, how-
ever, in the areas of health insurance, life insurance, conflict of interest, financial
reporting requirements, and interchange of personnel with the competitive service.
Question. On Page 3, you say one of the major goals of the legislation is to
eliminate any unwarranted differences between the civil service and the For-
eign Service. What kind of unwarranted differences are you thinking of?
Answer. The testimony referred to greater coordination between those agencies
operating under the Foreign Service personnel system rather than the elimination
of differences with the civil service system. One of the differences recently iden-
tified through the Board of the Foreign Service concerned the different proce-
dures and time required to separate Foreign Service employees. The differences
between the State Department's procedures and those of ICA were very signifi-
cant. Through the Board's advice, the systems were brought closer together to
avoid even the appearance that employees of one foreign affairs agency were
advantaged over another.
Question. Do you have any opinions about the Foreign Service grievance
system?
Answer. We believe that the current statutory Foreign Service grievance sys-
tem is, at the same time, both simpler and more rigid than the grievance systems
for the competitive service. The Foreign Service system is a single system and it
applies the same procedures to most grievances. It gives good procedural protec-
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tions for the serious matters while affording the same procedures to minor
complaints.
Question. Is it good management practice to have civil service and Foreign
Service employees working side-by-side, especially in a situation like the Agency
for International Development (AID) where the Foreign Service officers are de-
nied rotations home because of the fact that most Washington positions are
encumbered by civil service employees? Is this a problem.
Answer. It is not an ideal situation when employees performing identical
jobs work side-by-side under quite different conditions of employment. However,
it is not a significant problem when all understand that the b'oreign Service em-
ployee's assignment is temporary. This legislation will help resolve the problem
which exists because many Foreign Service employees are serving permanently
in domestic positions. We do not feel that it is appropriate for the foreign affairs
agencies to use the Foreign Service authorities to appoint employees who are
not going to serve abroad. The increased costs (primarily for retirement bene-
fits) of operating under the Foreign Service personnel system should be justified
by the overseas duties performed by the employee.
The situation at AID which prompts the apparent criticism in the question, is,
we believe, being corrected by the identification of additional positions in Wash-
ington to be filled by Foreign Service employees. When brought into proper bal-
ance, the civil service positions in AID will not cause a hardship.
Question. Has your testing research department ever looked at the Foreign
Service exam? What did they find out?
Answer. The written test used as part of the Foreign Service officer (FSO)
exam is developed under a contract let by the Department of State to the Edu-
cational Testing Service (ETS).
Since ETS maintains security and control of the written test, OPM does not
have copies. The content areas of the written test have changed over the years,
but in general, the tests have included questions on :
1. General Background-understanding of institutions and concepts basic in
the development of the U.S. and other countries.
2. English Expression-facility for clear and effective expression in written
English.
3. Functional Field Test-basic information in administration, economics,
politics, and cultural functions in a foreign environment.
The Department of State, on occasion, has approached OPM with proposals
to use the Federal Service Entrance Examination (FSEE) and the Professional
and Administrative Career Examination (PACE) in lieu of the contract devel-
oped test. In response to these consolidation proposals, the Personnel Research
and Development Center studied the relation between the FSO exam and the
FSEE and PACE written tests. The analyses showed that there was a sizable
overlap in the applicant population, and that while the two OPM tests were
similar to the FSO, the FSO written tests did a better job of differentiating be-
tween applicants with high levels of ability. The State Department did not carry
through with the consolidation plans.
The entrance level hiring program has recently been modified to include a one-
way assessment center to replace the panel interview. The assessment center ac-
tivity was developed by ETS. Because of our interest in assessment centers, an
extensive research study has been initiated by OPM's Personnel Research and
Development Center to study and evaluate the impact of this technique on the
selection program. About 1,500 candidates are processed through this phase of
the program annually. As part of our assessment center research, we plan to
study the impact of the assessment center process on minorities and women.
Question. The President has complained that there are too many U.S. Govern-
ment employees abroad. Now, we have asked the Secretary of State, the heads of
ICA and AID, and other witnesses which agencies are overstaffed abroad, and
they all said that it was not them. Do you know what agencies are overstaffed
"b
road?
Answer. We have no first-hand knowledge which would enlighten the Com-
iittee. There is considerable work being done, however, under the direction of
)MB to study the Executive Branch's overseas staffing requirements.
Question. Pleas-e comment on the provision of the bill which would limit to four
ears the length of time a Foreign Service officer can be assigned to a non-
ore ervice fob in another agency. Is there any limit on the length of time
civil servant can be detailed to a Foreign Service job?
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218
Answer. There is nothing in the civil service laws or regulations covering the
length of details in either direction. We believe the 4-year limitation is reason-
able. Details beyond this duration might turn into careers. In view of the early
optional retirement available to Foreign Service employees, it appears prudent to
assure that assignments made out of the Foreign Service carry reasonable
limitations.
Question. As you foresee the impact on the reform plan on the Peace Corps per-
sonnel system, would Peace Corps have the flexibility to grant career status to
any of its employees : To extend their employment beyond the traditional 5-year
period?
Answer. The 5-year period is more than traditional ; it is required by statute.
Section 2506(a) (2) of Title 22 expressly prohibits Peace Corps staff service "for
a period of more than 5 years." Status is a benefit of career or permanent appoint-
ment rather than temporary appointment. Employees with Foreign Service staff
appointments of unlimited duration are eligible for career status under Executive
Order 11219 (1965)-State; AID, and ICA staff with unlimited appointment
already have this benefit.
Question. Do you see advantages in Peace Corps moving away from a strict
5-year rule?
Answer. While we would not obiect to legislation removing this restriction in
order to permit unlimited appointments, we believe that the Peace Corps is in a
better position to see whether the 5-year rule accomplishes what it was designed
to and at what cost. Turnover of employees carries an obvious cost in not per-
mitting a career system. It is difficult for us to assess the costs of the current
limitation in terms of dedication or expertise lost.
Question. Under the present system, Foreign Service Nationals working for
Peace Corps are in the same classification system as all other FSNs in U.S. mis-
sions, although many of them have considerably greater responsibilities than
other FSNs, including supervision of Americans. Could you comment on whether
envisioned reforms will impact on this situation?
Answer. Under section 444 of the Foreign Service Act of 1946, foreign nationals
are now paid under local compensation plans that are based on prevailing wage
rates and compensation practices for corresponding types of positions in the local
economy. This policy would continue, under section 451 of the Foreign Service
Act of 1979.
We are not aware of the specific situation which your question concerns. For-
eign national positions, under both the present law and the proposed law, are
classified according to their duties and responsibilities, and positions involving
greater responsibilities are presumably classified in correspondingly higher levels.
and thus paid at higher rates.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
The next witness that we have this morning is Ambassador Robert
G. Neumann.
Ambassador Neumann, we welcome you this morning and look for-
ward to hearing from you.
Mr. DERWINSKI. Madam Chairman, I was wondering if you would
permit me a suggestion. Ambassador Neumann, I know you are a vet-
eran and you have a long statement. If you could insert the entire state-
ment for the record and maybe go over some high spots-I have read
your testimony. and it raises more questions in my mind than anybody
we have heard from. In fact, it is extremely provocative and enlighten-
ing, and the sooner we get to the questions, at least I will be most happy.
So, if you wouldn't mind.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think that is an excellent statement and an excel-
lent suggestion. Can we put the statement in the record and just have
you summarize?
Mr. NEUMANN. Of course Madam Chairman, you can do whatever
you like, up to a point.
[General laughter. ]
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Mr. NEUMANN. Madam Chairman, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, I had intended not to read my statement because I get bored
doing that, and if I get bored, surely you would be, but I did intend
to summarize and perhaps highlight some points. Is this acceptable'?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That would be very acceptable. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT G. NEUMANN, SENIOR ASSOCIATE,
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES,
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Mr. NEUMANN. If you would just prefer to ask questions, I would
be glad to go into that.
May I emphasize that I am a noncareer ambassador of 10 years'
duration spanning one Democratic and two Republican administra-
tions. I believe my highest campaign contribution was $500 made at a
mad moment of total abandon.
[General laughter.]
Mr. NEUMANN. So, I do not believe I fit into any recognizable
category, and I think that at the end of my statement you may find
that this is in fact so.
I have been encouraged by subcommittee counsel, and I hope this
is not telling secrets, to address myself to broader questions than just
the legislation. All my life, I have done what some woman or another
told me to do, and I thought I should not interrupt my record at this
late stage, so I want to address myself to two different parts, one the
general and one the specific.
I might say that my interest in responding to the testimony, which
honors me greatly, was that I am deeply concerned with the quality
of the Foreign Service, and this is the priority which I address. After
all, those officers are to carry out a good and effective foreign policy
that stands between peace and war.
Now, the first subject to which I want to address myself and have in
my paper is the distinction between career and noncareer ambassadors.
Extreme statements have been made, of course, on that. There is a
widespread idea that all noncareer ambassadors are campaign fund
contributors of large amounts and otherwise unqualified. There was
also the remark made by an unnamed high member of the Foreign
Service that surely you would not appoint a businessman to command
an army in war.
On the other side, there are those who say that all Foreign Service
officers are some kind of Ivy League elite, and do not really know any-
thing about life in these United States, and very often having met the
payroll is a criterion for life. I do not know where that comes from,
but I have heard it a good many times.
Let me state very strongly that what is needed for a good and effec-
tive ambassador is a combination of qualities which you find in no
single service and in no one background. There is always the combina-
tion possible, and you find them in both. An ambassador should have
a good idea of a cultural background of the country to which he is
accredited. He should preferably know the language, although that
differs very greatly from post to post. There are some places where it
is ridiculous to send an ambassador without knowing the language.
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I was Ambassador to Morocco, and to send somebody there who does
not speak French is a joke, because he couldn't talk to anybody. I re-
member my Nigerian colleague, who was a sad figure because he could
not talk to anybody. He did not know either Arabic or French. Yet, it
is always more important to have something to say, because if you have
nothing to say and speak the language, you are likely to be found out
more quickly.
Rather than comparing an ambassador to a general, I would com-
pare him to an executive of a large company. I do not believe that the
president of a pharmaceutical company would have to be a chemist.
He does, however, have to be able to absorb a large amount of knowl-
edge on a large number of facts. He has to delegate. He has to be quick
thinking. We all have had emergencies where, if you are wrong, you
pay for it or somebody will pay for,it, and -there is this definite quality
of leadership which, especially in an embassy, which is a relatively
small organization, will be felt very quickly down the line, especially
as the Foreign Service is a disciplined service and reacts very quickly
both to leadership and to the absence thereof.
I submit, Madam Chairman and Mr. Chairman, that there are
noncareer appointments that do not come up to that level. I must,
however, add that I have met a number of career Ambassadors who
did not come up to that level, either. I will not name any names, be-
cause I do not wish to spend the rest of my life in court, but the fact
is that there is no guarantee in any career but only a combination of
qualities, abilities, quickness and so forth, to performing that well.
It is, of course, necessary that if one wishes to have a valid profes-
sional career service, that only a small number of ambassadors be
from outside the career. But I think that having noncareer ambas-
sadors is a healthy thing, and in line with the more flexible and mobile
character of our American society.
Now, let me turn to the provisions of the bill. I want to emphasize
that I would prefer-although I am, of course, open to all questions
to the extent that I am qualified or reasonably knowledgeable-to
confine myself largely to those things for which I have had an oppor-
tunity of observation and reflection..
I think one or two of the gentlemen ahead of, me have referred to
the absolute need of worldwide availability of the Foreign Service.
This is one of the principal reasons, if not the only one, why I be-
lieve in the need for a separate Foreign Service. If we relied only on
volunteers, we might have a three times over staffing of Paris and
Rome, and not enough people for hardship posts, and there might
be very few people whom we could get for the latter who would be
good.
It is necessary, therefore, that people be assigned but there ought
to be at least a possibility-I know it is not always achieved-to put
the right person in the right spot.
Also, I have to emphasize that, having been for a good number of
years Ambassador to Afghanistan, where health facilities are a some-
times thing, that there are considerable hazards, and one accepts those
because one knows or should know: what one gets into. There are also
family strains that have arisen in recent years between spouses, espe-
cially about careers that have to be disrupted by foreign assignment.
That cannot serve as an easy excuse.
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In the present inflation situation, I am sorely convinced, however,
from my acquaintance with the Foreign Service-not as Ambassador,
but in the 19 years when I was a professor before I joined the Foreign
Service, and now later, when I am associated with the Georgetown
Center for Strategic Studies-that the overwhelming majority of
Foreign Service officers would prefer the uncertainty of Foreign Serv-
ice life and the uncertainty of careers which may not work out, in
other words, the competitive advantage over career and employment
security.
I am sure that is not true of everyone but I think that a good officer,
and I really am frankly interested only in a good officer, is more in-
terested in the competitive opportunities to do well and serve his coun-
try than he is in security.
It is also my impression, which I want to underline with deep
conviction, that our Foreign Service compares very favorably with
the foreign service of other countries with which I have come into
daily contact in my 10 years of assignment. Of course it has a pro-
fessional bias. So has every profession. In French there is a lovely
word of "deformation professionelle," the deformation of a profession.
None of us can be said to be without vice.
Now, a professional service has obviously to be based on merit, on
a true merit system, and the question is, is this accomplished by the
present system, and the answer has to be a resounding "no." I want
to emphasize, however, that some inequity is not the result of legisla-
tion. A great many remedies could have been brought about under the
existing legislation within the management and the working of the
system. One has also to bear in mind the caveat or the unwritten foot-
note that the same human beings with their failings who did not
manage the old system very well are likely to manage, if that is the
word, the new system, and that thought gives me pause.
Now, the principal problem of the present really serious situation,
and I want to say that it is very serious, as I am observing every day,
is that there is a tremendous glut in the upper ranks. This glut, of
course, travels all the way down. I have the greatest admiration and
respect for Congressman Pepper and Mr. Glazer. I do agree that there
are inequities. I speak with feeling on this subject. I myself am, to my
profound and growing regret, over 60.
[General laughter.]
Mr. NEUMANN. But the system has to operate on some kind of as-
sumption, and frankly, if the 60 limit were not observed, at least for
the next 10 years or so, I think the system would become absolutely
unmanageable.
One other problem among several is the colossal inflation. Now,
Chairman Fascell has referred to that. It is a very real problem, not
only, of course, in the Foreign Service but in every service, including
the military service. There is, in fact, no really true up-or-out policy,
although I understand a new attempt was made recently on that. To
a large extent it has been made worse by the cumbersomeness of griev-
ance procedures and the permissive attitude of courts.
The other reason that we all know for the glut is affirmative action.
This is laudable, but nevertheless cuts down on spots, and remember,
we are talking about a small service and 1 percent, 2 percent of spots
makes a lot of difference.
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Political appointments have penetrated even into the lower grades,
that is, grades 5 and 6. These younger political, or not political, but
mostly political assistant secretaries are uncomfortable with older
deputies, besides which there again is an attrition of positions that
would otherwise be available.
The most absurd point of this evolution was reached on the pro-
motion list of 1978, when only 13 people were promoted in the very
crucial class from class 5 to 4. The situation has slightly improved
since then as to numbers, but not very much. Even in those small
figures, those that were promoted, and I know some of them, were
not the best. The reason for that was humanitarian. Without promo-
tion some of them might have been out on time and grade. So, in other
words, there is no more merit system. An officer who in 1970 in class
5 would have had an expectation of rising rapidly to class 4 and 3 and
be a clear candidate if he continued to perform well for class 1, can-
not now have that expectation at all. In fact, the very best officers in
the Department and in the Foreign Service now go in time frames,
almost exclusively, unless they have the luck of an assignment in a
place where they can have an opportunity for spectacular achieve-
ment, pulling the King or the Prime Minister out of a fire or throw-
ing themselves on top of a hand grenade.
As I said before, the problem lies in the management of the system.
By this I do not mean the management only, but throughout the
system, the hands and the minds of all those who have authority, who
write performance reports, and so forth. There is simply a lack of guts
to tell a nice and not too bad but not good enough officer, Joe, I am
sorry, but there is little opportunity for you to rise to a higher level,
and it is better for you to look for other things, because after all, if
you want to know, yes, Virginia, there is life after the Foreign Service.
[General laughter.]
Mr. NEUMANN..Now, again, this rating inflation is a common human
problem. It speaks beautifully for humanity and very badly for ef-
ficiency. If one is the only supervisor who says this man is fine but
there are certain real weaknesses, then one damns him beyond all rec-
ognition, because one stands out over all the others who are using up
the superlatives.
Also, if one does not make such judgments early in an officer's
career, there is a double problem. Many supervisors do not want to
be too harsh on younger officers when they are in a class where they
have not yet acquired the right to an annuity; but if one does not weed
them out at that time, then the mediocre at class 4 or 6 will come up
and be mediocre at class 3, and then it becomes political. The ques-
tion is, if he wasn't good, why is he suddenly being penalized?
Well, very often he should have been penalized all along. So, in other
words, penalizing is not a form of punishment. But what do we want?
Do we want a social security system or do we want an excellent For-
eign Service? I do not mean to sound as inhuman as I sound to my-
self, but life is hard, and choices have to be made.
If you are an executive, you have to make them.
Now, as to the Foreign Service Act of 1979, I see some very definite
improvements, that is, if properly administered. The threshold pro-
vision to what used to be class 3 and now to the lowest class of the
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Senior Foreign Service is, I think, a very important step and an op-
portunity to divide those with real ability from those who are per-
baps just coasting along-again, I say, if rigorously applied.
The competitive provisions also have a managerial advantage in
the sense that they are disguised. They are negative in a way, and
can weed out without getting into. the problem of grievance proce-
dures. But this has also a difficulty, and here I frankly think I owe this
committee frankness. I am in a dilemma. I realize the need of manage-
ment to weed out in order to loosen up the present intolerable system,
and rigidity that exists. On the other hand, I am a little troubled that
the quotas are to be set without some kind of consultations.
Now, when I speak of consultations, I do not necessarily mean with
the employees association or another established authority. What I
have in mind is that management be obliged to consult outside its
own ranks to assure that there is no.intention of cleaning out the
ranks to open them up for the politicization of the Service.
I might add, that politicization does not just come from the outside.
It can come from the inside. It is the element of agreement and going
along. I would like to see some control of this because that can be
achieved by setting the figures in a way which does this without any-
body being able to complain that he or she himself or herself was
discriminated against. Here again, we are talking about a very small
group.
Then I am troubled by the short periods in grade which are being
contemplated. I have several reservations about the short periods in
grade. One is, there are differences between assignments. It is impos-
sible to give everybody the same wonderful assignment where they can
show how good they are. Some assignments are dull, and do not give
that opportunity. So if the rating period coincides with a dull assign-
ment, the officer is in difficulties.
Second, and perhaps more important to me, is what goes on in the
mind of the officer and what goes on in the mind of the evaluators
when there are short periods. There can be punishment made for
speaking out. This is true in every human organization. It is 'not just
that people are so hidebound. It is that there is an enormous invest-
ment in any given policy. Everybody joins in order to carry it out,
and then a critic says, now, wait a minute, this isn't so good. That is
an irritant. That is a part of the way human organizations work,
whether the Foreign Service, the military, a church organization, or
a tennis club.
Therefore, what does an officer say to himself as he contemplates
a short period of evaluation? He very likely will tell himself that it
is better to quote the law and not rock the boat. This is not what we
need in the Foreign Service. Mind you, I do not want everybody to
rock the boat, but there has to be some rocking of the boat.
Third, there is the fact that panels-and I think these Foreign
Service panels are about as good as panels can be-I have not served
on one, but I am very respectful of the care and objectivity which
they bring to their task-have certain unwritten preference for the
well-rounded officer. In times of crisis, the well-rounded officer is some-
times pointless.
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Forgive me for making a pun, but the person who is outstanding
and may have some weaknesses to compensate for, that may be more.
important for a crisis job. The brilliant but uneven person is likely
to be not well evaluated if the rating period is shorter. Now, I have
in my testimony that the parachute clause might give a little more
assurance. I recognize that this is in a sense a contradiction of the
idea of rapid eliminations, but I do feel, in deference to the excel-
lence of the Service, that giving a little more security perhaps in parts
of that Senior Foreign Service class might encourage the availability
of courage.
Finally, I made some suggestions which I do not suggest should
be put into law, but some way should be found to bring them in.
One suggestion was that one way of cutting the glut is to expand
promotion, even double promotions beyond available slots. Now, this
would have the difficulty of forcing a number of officers to accept
positions below their rank, but at least they would have the satisfac-
tion of recognition for their outstanding service-which presently
simply does not exist.
Another suggestion was that the willingness of rating or review-
ing officers to be critical in their ratings and reviews would in turn
become part of the reviews of their records and a panel would be
instructed to take a negative view of those who rate everybody
in the 90- or 80-percent class. Finally, the parts of the inspector's
report which deal with personnel should be taken more seriously
because those are not people who work with the rated officers con-
stantly. Under the present system- and again, this is not part of the
law but reality-inspectors' reports are not taken very seriously.
I apologize, Madame Chairman and Mr. Chairman, that I spoke
at such great length, but a professor almost automatically speaks 50
minutes. I hope I haven't.
[Mr. Neumann's prepared statement follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT G. NEUMANN, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CENTER
FOR STRATEGIO AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
My name is Robert Gerhard Neumann. I was a noncareer ambassador of the
United States for 10 years (Afghanistan and Morocco, 1966-1976) under one
Democratic and two Republican administrations. Before that, I was a professor
of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, for 19 years,
during which period I also served as Director of the Institute of International
and Foreign Studies at that same institution. I am now associated with the
Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University.
I am honored by the invitation of this combined committee to present my
views. I have been informed that you are interested in my general observations
on certain aspects of the United States Foreign Service, as well as on the pro-
posed Foreign Service Act of 1979. I shall, therefore, address myself to both
categories, but primarily to those items on which I have had an opportunity for
personal observation and reflection.
A. Career and noncareer ambassadors
This is a subject on which tempers and editorial opinions flare easily. There are
those extreme views which look at "noncareer" or "political" ambassadors as
invariably wealthy campaign contributors or close political associates of a par-
ticular president, with few qualifications, interested primarily in the comfort
and social aspects of ambassadorial life. There is also the other extreme view
that-with very few exceptions, only career officers are qualified to serve as
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ambassadors. On another extreme lies the opinion that Foreign Service Offi-
cers represent some kind of rarefied elite, untouched by the realities of Ameri-
can life, in particular, having never "met a payroll", and therefore people who
ought to be viewed with distrust.
As so often in life, truth is not on the side of either extreme. To get at a more
balanced appraisal, let me state what an ambassador is and what he or she does.
An ambassador is termed "the personal representative of the President", which in
most instances, does not exactly mean what it says. What it does mean is this:
just as the President performs the entire range of executive functions of the
U.S. Government, so does the American ambassador represent and carry out, to
the extent applicable, those same executive functions abroad. He or she is the
representative of all departments, not the State Department alone, although he
normally reports to and through the State Department.
To do his or her work with maximum effectiveness and benefit for the United
States, the ambassador must have as good and close a relationship as possible
with the heads of state and government of the country to which he is accredited,
while at the same time maintaining an independent and detached point of view,
remembering at all times that he is the American ambassador to the host country,
and not from it. The ambassador must have a keen appraisal and understanding
of the culture, history, economy, religion, psychology, etc. of the host country
without 'becoming an apologist for it. It is always helpful, but in many places
absolutely essential that he have a command of the local language, although this
is more important in one place than in another. But if a choice must be made,
having something to say is more important than speaking the language, because
if one has nothing to say and yet speaks the language, one is found out more
quickly. An ambassador must also have a firm knowledge of the political and eco-
nomic realities and problems of the United States ; lie should have the ability of
being a good and careful negotiator, although the amount of personal negotiating
may differ greatly from post -to post ; he should be a good manager, able to use
effectively the specialized knowledge and experience of his multi-faceted staff.
Dealing at the top level of the host government, he must have a good and up-to-
date knowledge of the principal problems and projects with which both countries
are concerned, without getting lost in details ; he should exercise an executive's
good judgment as -to what he should handle himself and what lie should delegate.
He must be quick-thinking and quick-acting in crisis situations, with good judg-
ment and without panic. Because the Foreign Service is, on the whole, very
disciplined as well as sensitive, it responds very quickly, as I experienced, to
evidence of decisive leadershlip as well as to the absence thereof.
An ambassador should have the personality, ability, and style to foster good
cooperation and high morale among the Mission staff and local, as well as third
country employees, but he must also be sufficiently toughminded when work per-
formed is not up -to acceptable standards. He should be of such a personality as
to make him highly acceptable among both the host country and the American
community. At the same time, much of an ambassador's work cannot be success-
fully accomplished without his ability to deal with the multiple and sometimes
obscure channels of the Washington bureaucracy. He may be dearly beloved
abroad, but if he cannot be effective in Washington he cannot be effective in his
post. Above everything else lie has to keep constantly in mind that his principal
overall function is that of advancing the interests of the United States to the
fullest extent possible, without interpreting this narrowly or too selfishly, as such
an interpretation would not be in keeping with the values and-ideals of our
country.
From what has been written above, it can be easily seen that no single career,
not even the Foreign Service career, will necessarily and inevitably prepare a
man or woman for an ambassadorial or an equivalent assignment. What is needed
is a combination of personal qualities, experiences, training, attitudes and per-
sonality. Whatever the background, he or she, being human, will fall short in
some categories. The career Foreign Service officer who also has the other quali-
ties defintely has an advantage. But even a successful Foreign Service career does
not automatically produce good ambassadors.
On the other side of the equation, a non-career appointee with little or no
governmental experience is handicapped, and if he also has little knowledge of
foreign affairs, he will be seriously, perhaps fatally handicapped. If, however,
lie or she has all or most of the other qualities, as well as an analytical mind and
a considerable ability to learn quickly, much of the handicap can, after a while,
be overcome. Some countries actually prefer non-career or political ambassa-
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dors-sometimes for the wrong reasons. Others regard the appointment of such a
person as denigrating their countries' standing.
To make good selections one has to look at a variety of factors and personality
traits. In my experience I have known both career and non-career ambassadors
who were abominations. By and large, the worst non-career ambassador is
probably somewhat worse-but not by much-than the worst career ambassador.
And there are stars in both classes, as well as varying types in between. Hence,
the peculiarly American system of political and career ambassadors has virtue,
provided that the political group is strictly limited in size and that the appointees
of both groups have the required qualifications.
B. The Foreign Service
The professional Foreign Service of the United States is, and must be, an elite
corps in the same sense as the Marines are an elite among combat soldiers. But
the word "elite" is sometimes misunderstood. The picture, or rather the carica-
ture of the "striped pants" with strange accents from a few Ivy League col-
leges is totally out of keeping with the reality which I experienced.
In my 10 years as American ambassador, I have gained the deepest respect
for the overall talent, ability, devotion, and patriotism of the United States
Foreign Service. It compares well with the Foreign Services of every country
with which I have had contact. I have never failed for lack of loyal and dedi-
cated support. Of course I had subordinates of varying abilities and some,
though happily not many, I had to remove. This is the unpleasant, but ines-
capable duty of an executive.
Because the responsibility of any but the tiniest diplomatic mission abroad
comprises so many functions and relationships, both at home and abroad, it is
vital that our missions be staffed by true professionals representing the greatest
possible reservoir of personal and institutional knowledge, skill and memory.
Career and non-career ambassadors alike, but especially the latter, are fools
if they do not carefully consider the advice and warnings of their experienced
professional staffs. I dare say that there is not a single ambassador who has
not been saved at one time or another from a serious and embarrassing mistake
by timely warning or advice. Of course the ambassador, like all top executives,
must make the final. determination, but at least he should know what problems
and pitfalls he is likely to encounter.
To serve the mission well, Foreign Service Officers must be available world-
wide, sometimes, alas, regardless of personal preferences, inconveniences, and
dangers. For this reason alone, they cannot be under the rules and procedures
of the general Civil Service. These dangers and inconveniences are very real.
I myself lived under direct and personal assassination threat three times during
my tours abroad, and nobody, certainly in Afghanistan, escaped a bout with a
disagreeable form of amoebic infection, of which I had six. My younger son still
suffers occasionally from its consequences. A casual visitor from home is some-
times dazzled by the servants and the elegant houses of diplomats, as well as
the social life of the diplomatic career abroad ; the visitor does not see that serv-
ants give us as much work as they save, that plumbing and power can be highly
individualistic, even picturesque, that the often frantic social life is not just
for fun, but for the purpose of receiving and passing information in an informal
setting, as well as for the ever-present duty of representing one's country and
showing keen interest in even the dullest exhibitions.
Foreign Service officers realize that they may frequently be out-of-pocket,
especially in this age of inflation, and that their promotions and financial in-
crements may arrive much more slowly than is the case with some of their class-
mates who have chosen other careers. They realize also that worldwide assign-
ments may place great strains on family life and ties, as indicated by a dis-
tressingly high divorce rate and increasing rate of separations as spouses remain
in the U.S. to continue careers while the FSO goes abroad. Most of them are
willing to accept this, because they take justified pride in being members of an
exceptionally highly-motivated, and highly qualified, as well as interesting life-
long career service, whose effective diplomacy is what ultimately stands between
peace and war. I can say with the deepest conviction that my 10 years of diplo-
matic service have given me and my wife greater admiration for my colleagues
and deeper relationships than have the preceding 19 years of academic life in a
first-rate university.
One of the rewards of a Foreign Service career is an opportunity, even at
junior levels, to exercise very considerable degrees of responsibility. This of
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course depends on the type of assignment. Not every Foreign Service officer
can be quite that fortunate. Usually, such opportunities for an early exercise of
responsibility are more readily available at small and middle-sized Missions
than at very large ones. Fortunately, most Missions are in the former, rather
than the latter category. Moreover, in my view and experience the most useful
career officer is one who is specialized, but not over-specialized, because the ex-
clusive specialist almost invariably overrates the importance of his or her par-
ticular sector. Hence, while career officers should, preferably, spend a major
part of their careers in one or two geographic areas, they should have a few as-
signments in other regions as well for the sake of balance. Similarly, their serv-
ice should be well-distributed between home and foreign assignments. An under-
standing of both the home front and the foreign areas is necessary for maximum
effectiveness, especially as there is invariably a certain and frequently construc-
tive tension between the home office and the Mission abroad. The career officer
who is abroad all the time or almost so will inevitably lose touch with the reali-
ties and the changes of American political, economic and social life. The officer
who is always in Washington will be like the Admiral in Gilbert and Sullivan's
"H.M.S. Pinafore", "who never went to sea".
1. General observations
In view of the grave responsibilities resting on the professional Foreign Service,
it seems evident that the United States must endeavor to have the best possible
such service. Because it is a relatively small corps, and as the FSO component at
most Missions is very small, poor quality and poor morale will quickly show up in
a lowering of the total Mission performance. As every executive knows, a sound
personnel policy requires that those with outstanding ability should be pro-
moted rapidly and those who do not measure up should be dropped. Moreover,
more is needed than brilliant ambassadors and ministers. First-rate trade nego-
tiators, economic officers, discerning political analysts, quick-thinking and fast-
acting consular officers are equally vital. Good armies must have good generals,
but the generals cannot be effective without top notch company commanders and
platoon sergeants.
Now I want to address myself to two overriding questions : does the present
personnel system of the Foreign Service achieve, within reason, acceptable prox-
imity to this ideal? My regretful answer is-"largely no". The second question
is, does the new proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 have reasonable expecta-
tions of remedying the just-mentioned shortcoming? My answer is-"only in part,
and that at some risk". Furthermore, some of the problems cannot easily be
remedied by legislation or reorganization. They can be remedied by better and
more courageous management.
Let me be specific : this committee will undoubtedly have heard testimony to
the effect that there is a glut, especially in the upper grades of the Foreign Serv-
ice, that this has enormously retarded promotions throughout the system. Worse,
the way this has worked out is that in view of the very small number of promo-
tion slots available in recent years, promotions have tended to go not to the best
and brightest, but rather to those adequate but not always first-rate officers, who,
had they not been promoted, would have run out of time in class.
On the other end of the scale, the situation has, if possible, been even worse.
The "up-or-out" provision which is not in the 1964 law, but is clearly in its legis-
lative history might come into effect, to reactivate it, but the application of this
principle has been enormously complicated by cumbersome and endless grievance
procedures and especially the frequent, and in my opinion, excessively permissive
decisions of courts.
Nobody would advocate the vesting of arbitrary power in management without
adequate safeguards. But the system as it exists today is obviously not working
well.
I must also state in all candor that the operation of the in-itself laudable and
even necessary affirmative action program (EEO) has materially reduced the
number of slots available for promotion, not only at the level of entry of EEO
officers, but at subsequent levels as well, though in decreasing measure. A particu-
larly drastic example is the promotion list for February 1978 when only 13 offi-
cers were promoted from classes 5 to 4, in contrast to over 30 promoted in 1967.
Under such circumstances the loss to the regular FSOs of even a small number of
slots has very disagreeable effects.
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Furthermore, political appointees have penetrated below the usual levels, some
of them even down to classes 5 and 6, thereby further diminishing the number
of available slots. This has had serious consequences. The Carter Administration
in particular, while appointing fewer political appointees to ambassadorial
positions, has brought in a good many more "politicians" into the lower ranks
than was the case in previous administrations.
The upshot of this is that we do not in fact have a merit system in the Foreign
Service, or only to a very limited degree. An outstanding Class 5 officer who, with
the luck of good assignments, would, in 1970 have reached Class 3 in a very few
years, and would have been considered well on his way to class 1 and top level
assignments, could not expect such good fortune in 1979, even though he had
exactly the same qualifications and assignments. In fact, the time difference
between promotion of the outstanding and of the merely adequate has become
nonexistent except in a handful of instances, where the luck of assignment and
the accident of events have given an opportunity for spectacular and highly
visible deeds. No wonder the best officers in the Service frequently feel demoralized
and that they are sorely tempted by far more highly paid offers from business,
from Capitol Hill, or other careers.
Moreover, middle grade and even junior officers who, because of their ability,
occupy positions of considerable authority and sensitivity, are frequently, as I
have often observed, handicapped by having to deal with foreign officials or
military personnel far superior in grade and rank as compared to our people.
This disparity does not remain hidden to their foreign counterparts who must
wonder whether something is perhaps wrong with their American opposite
number, or whether the fact that they have to deal with lower-ranking American
personnel does not belittle their own status and dignity or that of their country.
I have no hesitation in stating that the present system is badly in need of im-
provement. But when I face the question,! whether the newly proposed act is likely
to achieve this, I am, frankly, assailed by doubt. There are several reasons for
this :
The first is that much of the problem does not lie in the legislation but in the
management and the operation of the system, and that many, if not. all of the
evils, could have been remedied under existing legislation. The glut, especially in
the upper ranges, did not occur overnight : it was clearly foreseeable, evident for
a long time. A more rigorous thinning out, not just on the top levels, but through-
out the system, could have been accomplished by a greater supply of courage.
What this would have meant was the responsible officers throughout the system
would have had the guts to look colleagues and co-workers in the eye and tell
them frankly when their performance quality under review indicated that they
were unlikely to rise above certain levels, or even that they would have been
well-advised to seek a different career. This situation has worsened because the
Freedom of Information system has compelled rating officers to show their
findings to the rated personnel. Of course, it is also true that the previous system
of secret rating lent itself to abuse. I should add that these shortcomings do not
only affect the Foreign Service system but the military and certainly the Civil
Service system as well. Moreover, it is an international and not just an American
phenomenon. It is perhaps a demonstration of human nature at its most appall-
ing and least effective.
Another aspect of this lack of courage is the all-pervasive rating inflation.
Few rating officers have the courage to tell their subordinates frankly where and
when they have weaknesses. It is understandable ; they are dealing with people,
especially in the small missions abroad, with whom they work and mix socially
every day. How much easier it is to give only a good rating and thus "avoid
trouble". To be sure, they are perhaps a few more superlatives left to confer upon
the truly outstanding. But the margin of differentiation becomes so small that
it may not be easily visible to promotion personnel. If on the other hand, as I
have seen on a few occasions, a conscientious rating officer does muster the
courage to render an objective, hence not uncritical evaluation, he will inevitably
inflict such a destructive and possibly fatal damage upon the rated officer's
career, as to be far out of proportion to the result intended. This is of course
because in the ocean of inflated evaluations the few honest ones stand out like
acts of eternal damnation. A few courageous rating officers cannot change the
system without doing incalculable harm. Only if a very large number of rating
officers were to change their attitudes and take courage into their hands would
there be a change.
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This is even more the case when officers do not perform satisfactorily at a time
when their age and years of service have not yet given them the right to an
annuity. The temptation to take the easy ~N ay and and not deprive a substandard,
but decent and honorable officer of his livelihood, becomes overwhelming and he
is likely to be allowed to coast along. This is humanly admirable, but destructive
to the system. I have encountered a number of grade 3 officers whose per-
formance was only mediocre and who should have been weeded out long ago,
but neither had they deteriorated suddenly so as to justify expulsion at that
late time. In this respect, the new proposed legislation offers distinct advantages
provided the threshhold requirements at (present) class 3 are vigorously en-
forced.
2. Specific observations
Is the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 capable of or likely to provide
remedies'? To the extent that the present situation is the result of human fail-
ings and gutlessness, the answer probably has to be no, because the same type
of human beings will operate the new system. It is however, understandable that
managers of personnel systems, any personnel systems, prefer laws and regula-
tions which make it possible for them to do the unpleasant in an anonymous, im-
personal fashion. If all, or most men and women were good, just, and courageous,
few laws and regulations would be needed, but in the real world, this cannot be
reasonably expected in any service or in any country. Therefore, one has to look
at improvements of the system and its regulation so that the inadequate and
mediocre can still manage (barely).
Does the new legislation then, hold out the promise of substantial improve-
ment of the present inequities? "To some extent, yes". But only to some extent
and that at some cost. Moreover, there are other remedies available, or a least
worthy of serious consideration, which are not in the present proposal. Reforms
proposed for the present grades 3 to 1-in particular, i.e. the creation of the
proposed Senior Foreign Service, will give management an opportunity for ac-
celerating attrition in the upper ranks. I am, however, concerned over three
possible shortcomings :
(1) While the attrition is in part performed by the operations of panels,
whose work in the past has been about as good as anything that could reason-
ably be expected, it seems likely that a larger part of the attrition will be
accomplished by management's unilateral right of quotas for each class and
changing them at will. This, being impersonal and not, or certainly not osten-
sibly directed against specific persons, could be arbitrary and open to abuse,
unless subject to negotiations or independent review. One must overlook the
fact that the total number of officers under consideration for these three classes
is not large; therefore, even relatively small decreases in quotas can have
drastic consequences and, in effect, clean out the ranks. If not carefully super-
vised and subjected to reasonable review and negotiations, it could turn into
an opportunity for unfairness and an opening wedge for politicization. I do
not say that this is likely to happen, and I am confident that this was not the
intention of the present management and administration which has proposed
this legislation. But in the real world, situations win out over intentions and
the new legislation is likely to be with us for a long time, as evidenced by the
longevity of the 1946 act.
(2) From sessions with many officers in the system and in management, I
have concluded that the maximum time-in-class spans envisaged for each of
the Senior Foreign Service steps are likely to be fairly short in order to
achieve the desired attrition effect rapidly. I understand that 2-5 year and
1-3 year periods are currently contemplated. In my view this represents a
double danger : (a) It is humanly impossible for all assignments to give Foreign
Service officers equal opportunities to show their capabilities. An element of
luck cannot be totally eliminated. If the rating period falls entirely or primarily
into such an undesirable assignment the officer concerned will simply be out
of luck. (b) More important for the good of the Service is the problem of con-
formity. The best and most capable officers are not always the easiest to work
with. Busy and harried superiors may become quickly irritated with sub-
ordinates who bring bad news or warn too often. The fine line between reason-
able criticism and carping is not always easily drawn. It may depend more on
the irritation level of the superior than on objective conditions.
What will be the effect of this situation on the officer who has a relatively short
timespan in which to succeed? The Foreign Service has its quota of heroes,
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but this is a quality which cannot be expected of every man and woman, espe-
cially when heavy family responsibilities, peer pressure, and all the other
factors of a competitive society exist. Very likely, the effect on many such
officers will be that of "playing it safe" to mute their criticism, to "go along",
to remain silent when perhaps they should have warned once more.
Therefore, I feel it to be my duty to warn against short timespans and against
removing them from the necessity of broad consultations and negotiations. The
better labor-management relations and the reinstitution of the Board of Foreign
Service are steps in the right direction but without mandated consultation they
do not go far enough because experience teaches that the Foreign Service man-
agement has merely consulted willingly unless circumstances compelled it to do so.
Furthermore, the most outstanding officer is not always the most well-rounded.
People with great gifts sometimes have some weaknesses. Especially when the
evaluation period is short, such officers may fall by the wayside to the great
loss of the Service. All systems are somehow slanted towards the well-rounded
and against the outstanding but uneven. But in times of peril the well-rounded
often become pointless. In sum, with short evaluation periods and the just men-
tioned pull towards conformity, the risk of the proposed system may well be too
great without a "parachute clause" which would give the individuals concerned
a sufficient measure of security to do the unorthodox and the courageous.
Human frailty as well as political temptations being what they are, I hope
the committees will consider writing some of this into the law. I do not feel the
need nor the competence to propose a specific language. It is not my intention to
over-dramatize the possibility of abuse. One hundred percent guarantees are
neither available nor desirable in life. I would give the present administration
and management full credit for sincere intentions towards fairness and absence
of evil intentions. But some future administration could be excessively political
and, without adequate safeguards, would be capable of rapidly "cleaning out the
ranks". While that might not in itself give immediate license for politicization,
the signals would be read very clearly. Politicization need not always occur by
bringing in outsiders. Certainly the experience of the Kissinger Administration
provided drastic evidence how top level officers who were critical of policy did not
fare well. Other administrations might be on a "youth kick" or harbor other fixed
ideas. The possibility of abuse is there.
3. Additional recommendations
I would like to conclude my testimony by suggesting consideration for certain
measures which would, in my opinion, have very beneficial effects and which
are not included in the present or past legislation or management practices :
(1) Expanding promotions including double promotion for the exceptionally
capable regardless of or at any rate well beyond available positions in the
grades indicated. This would enormously bolster morale and give recognition and
reward to outstanding, usually younger officers who 'are now held back by the
paucity of positions. This would of course have some undesirable results in
forcing officers to accept assignments below their grades. I believe, however, that
a policy of expanding promotion slots to the level of past years would mitigate the
hardships of the present system, until the glut has disappeared, provided the
promotions were "permanent", i.e. that a newly or more rapidly promoted or
double-promoted officer would not later on have to "pay back" by being unduly
held up elsewhere in his career.
(2) Fostering a major drive towards enforcing the "up or out" policy, not just
in the senior grades but throughout the system. This will inflict personal hard-
ships. The best we can hope is to strike a balance ; my emphasis is primarily to-
wards a better and more effective Foreign Service.
To bring about more truthful and more realistic evaluations two measures
would seem helpful: (a) The willingness'or unwillingness of the rating or re-
viewing officer to decrease the present evaluation inflation could he made part
of the criteria on which those same rating and review officers would in turn be
reviewed and rated both by superiors and promotion panels; and (b) more at-
tention should be paid to the personnel evaluations contained in Inspector's
reports. Foreign Service Inspectors both at home and abroad have two advan-
tages: they are not the superiors and colleagues of the rated persons and they
gain personal contact with the rated officer, which is not possible for the promo-
tion panels dealing with a world-wide system. If the Inspectors' evaluations were
taken more seriously by the promotion panels than is the case now, the evident
discrepancies between the impressions of the Inspectors and of the rating and re-
viewing officer would be noted and questioned.
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I would also like to draw the attention of this committee and of the Foreign
Service management to an experiment undertaken by the U.S. Air Force in
1974. In order to counter inflated ratings, the panels were instructed to apply the
following restrictions to the rating of all Lieutenant Colonels : 22 percent to the
top category, 28 percent to the second, the rest to be divided among categories
3, 4, 5 etc.
This created great unhappiness because it meant that 50 percent could not hope
for promotion. Perhaps the figures were too harsh and the system was discarded.
But it is significant that as soon as that happened, ratings jumped to the previous
98 percent excellent level.
(3) Finally, attempts should be made to honor, recognize, and perhaps grant
monetary reward to those officers who perform very well on certain levels but
do not have the capabilities of becoming chiefs of mission. The Foreign Service
needs good economic officers who may not be so outstanding at political analysis,
it needs to foster managerial talent of which it is, in my experience, in short
supply, it needs to encourage good economic and commercial officers, etc.
Beyond all that, a massive educational and psychological effort should be
made over time, and not just once, to impress on Foreign Service officers, espe-
cially on new officers, that they should not measure their achievements solely
by attainment of ambassadorial rank. In this respect the military services have
perhaps succeeded somewhat better in making a larger proportion of officers
accept the fact that only a few can become general officers to attain a flag rank,
and that being colonels is also most honorable. Perhaps some way can be found
to make the ambassadorial position a little less awesome, to induce and infuse
a more collegial atmosphere. I will not deny that I fully enjoyed ambassadorial
power and perks and anyone who claims that he does not is probably a liar.
I am not so much thinking of the physical, statutory, or regulatory privileges
and powers as I am of better human relations at home and abroad. In that
respect, ambassadorial magnificence seems sometimes like the last vestiges of
feudalism.
The present moment is a low point in the morale and the cohesion of the
Foreign Service. Reform is urgently required. The proposed new law is in
many respects a step in the right direction, although I have earlier voiced cer-
tain reservations which I hope will be taken into account. However, the main
causes of the problem are not caused by the old legislation and may not all be
remedied by the new law. Better and more courageous management is required,
not only by the formal part of management but also by all officers throughout
the system who have authority over others.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. No; we thank you very much for being here this
morning. I must say, though, as I listened to you, I am rather per-
plexed as to what kind of a solution you foresee. You talk about
giving managers more flexibility, but in so doing, don't you run the
risk of internally politicizing the organization much more? How
can you begin to guarantee that all managers are going to be efficient,
objective? Where is that great objective criterion in the sky? Is it
people who are not so well rounded but may be much more specialists?
How do you get that proper mix, and how do you develop a system
where you can be assured that you are going to have the type of
Foreign Service that I think we would all like to have if we could
just find an objective criterion that would not be abused in so doing?
Mr. NEUMANN. Madame Chairman, the question is very pertinent.
I do not think the total truth is available. Only God has the perfect
truth and we have relative aspects thereof. As to performance reports,
which are really the. gut of the system, I made a suggestion of how
an office can be forced to be more critical by knowing that he or she
will be rated and rated perhaps-poorly on some points if year after
year reports come out that say that everybody is just splendid.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So you would say that you recommend not nec-
essarily a quota system, but there would almost be a certain number
that would not get through the gate, or you would become suspicious
of the person writing the performance report.
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Mr. NEUMANN. That is correct. That is the same as when in one of
your very large classes in the university, you have 80 percent A's.
That is unlikely to be accurate. That happens now.
I mentioned the attempt by the Air Force to say that only half of
those rated can be in the upper percentage. It broke down because too
many people were deprived of the possibility of advancing. That is why
I hesitate directly to suggest that you set quotas, but the fact is, there
has to be some method of gradation because there are some who are
not as good as others. Yet this can be reflected in the performance
report.
One other thing is, the State Department Foreign Service form is
excellent. In fact, it is too good. There are so many categories in which
one has to respond that the narrative section becomes less important.
This is a subject you can argue up and down Capitol Hill and beyond,
but it is in the narrative that the distinction can be made. Then, of
course, once the distinctions are made, the panel has an opportunity
to judge. I think one comes closer to a good judgment with a narrative
than with a range that may lie between 98 and 100.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Well, let's go to your experience. When you were
an ambassador, did you write any negative evaluations?
Mr. NEUMANN. I wrote some.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Were people ever selected out?
Mr. NEUMANN. I did find that certain people did not come up to
par and they did eventually leave the Service. There were not many.
This was not done through evaluation. The ambassador evaluates-
that is, rates, in contrast to reviewing other people's rating-only very
few people, mainly his deputy and the heads of the agencies. Then he
reviews a number of other people. Well, my deputy was selected by
me, and he was not selected for his blue eyes. So, I found my evaluated
people very good.
I know of one of my deputies who had an attack of courage and
rated somebody not altogether negative, but brought out his negative
qualities, and there was hell to pay for that, because in effect he stood
out and condemned the man, and the man was notified. Again, there
is no way of doing this unless it is done very broadly. This is why I am
concerned.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If it is done very broadly, then don't we compound
the problem of getting well-rounded people?
Mr. NEUMANN. Not if you have reviews by the officer, reviews by the
next officer, by his superior, then by the panels, by the inspector's
report, and if you also have, of course, a Secretary of State who is
interested in the Foreign Service and in the personnel, and who lets
it be known that he wants people to be evaluated with these criteria in
mind.
Then, as I said, in this relatively small and responsive Service, you
will get results. There will be some hardships, yes, we cannot avoid
those.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I guess I understand that, and I think I see what
you are saying, but you also needed a Foreign Service that works
well together. There must be some cooperation, and if you are forcing
them all to be that competitive, when you put any kind of ratio on
it, you get into the problem that we have in the military, where every-
body is out trying to make the other guy look bad because of the
internal politics of the situation.
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Then there is another question when you analogize it to the mili-
tary, and that is, how much of it is the State Department's fault for
not taking the people and assigning them to tasks that they are most
uniquely qualified to do. You take an engineer and have him peel
potatoes. The extremes we know in the military very well. The ques-
tion is, doesn't that happen a lot in the State Department, too, be-
cause of its rotation system? You misuse a lot of your talent, so it
is not just all the rating system?
Mr. NEUMANN. Madame Chairman, these are big questions. As
to becoming overcompetitive, I don't want to say whether this is or
is not true in the military. I am not a military man, except for war-
time service. But I do not believe this is a very serious danger in the
Foreign Service. I think that, first of all, missions, speaking of the
foreign operation with which I am better acquainted, missions are
small. People serving there live in glass houses. If one looks bad,
everybody looks bad.
I am sure that many Foreign Service officers have been tempted
not to tell something to a political ambassador and to let him fall on
his face, but they do not do that because it is a damage to their country.
I must say that the degree of patriotism and dedication is very, very
high. I do not think overcompetition is a serious problem. If I were
to achieve a mission again, and I got notice that somebody had de-
liberately refrained from warning somebody who then performed
badly, I think that person would not have a brilliant future ahead of
him. I do not think overcompetition is a very real danger.
Your second question, would you repeat it, please?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Well, my question is, are we utilizing our man-
power properly? Are we utilizing the talent base? Do we have a talent
base assessment, and are we assigning them properly?
Mr. NEUMANN. No, certainly often we are not. I do not know that
there is an ideal assignment process, and of course some dull jobs also
have to be done. But, no job is really dull unless it is filled by a dull
person. I prefer the time when assignments were controlled by the
bureaus rather than by the central system, because the bureaus knew
the posts and they knew the people. Of course, there was favoritism,
because people wanted to hold onto the good ones.
I do believe that officers should not serve all of their Foreign Serv-
ice life in one geographic area. It is good for them to understand
that there is a world outside Europe or the Middle East or Latin
America. It broadens them. It makes their minds more flexible. But
looking at it from the field where I was, of course, quite frankly, fight-
ing like hell to get the best possible officers, and the hell with the
others, I found the bureau control system more flexible than the cen-
tral system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much.
Congressman Fascell.
Mr. FASCELL. Ambassador, what is your opinion of the present state
of morale in the Foreign Service?
Mr. NEUMANN. I think it is about as low as I have known it, and I
have known it low most of the time. [General laughter.]
There are many reasons, but one of them is, of course, the promotion
system. I must say that Foreign Service officers do appreciate the
opportunity to have important and exciting assignments, even when
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they are not promoted, and of course that is very often the case right
now.
I do not want to go into things that might be interpreted as politi-
cal. They are not intended so. Let us say that some administrations are
better than others, and some do not exist when it comes to administra-
tion. There are some funny things happening in the making of policy
which appall Foreign Service officers. You find that to some extent in
all administrations, but some, as I said, are worse than others.
I think that would be about as much _
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Ambassador, starting with the assumption that
legislation is not the panacea for all ills, you do agree, however, that
certain legislative reform is essential, and that this bill that is before
us is a step in that direction?
Mr. NEUMANN. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Coupled with all the other things, such as the required
management of the entire program?
Mr. NEUMANN. I support that.
Mr. FASCELL. What do you think of the possibility of institution-
alizing evaluations in a complementary sense-that is with an "e"-
to the present system of positive evaluation, so as to spread the base
of negative evaluation by institutionalizing negative evaluation? It
is entirely possible, for example, that you could have a totally posi-
tive, superior rating for an individual on the positive side, and the
same officer, given the opportunity by meeting specific negative re-
porting requirements, would be able to spell out those negative things,
since everybody else would have to do the same thing.
Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Chairman, there is such a requirement in the
present forms.
Mr. FASCELL. But that is narrative.
Mr. NEUMANN. No, it is in the form that he has to say which are
Mr. FASCELL. I understand, but isn't that a selection process of pick
1 out of 5 or rate from 1 to 10 in a scale of judgment factors that are
laid out in the evaluation form itself ?
In other words, if your choice is poor, medium, and good, or what-
ever the ratings are on a scale of zero to 10 or zero to.5, it is going to be
very difficult for that one person just checking off in that fashion,
you see.
Mr. NEUMANN. Well, sir, in the present forms, or at least those that
I am familiar with, there was a question something like, "which are the
disadvantages or shortcomings of the officer," and you have to respond
to that. But if you ask me in effect is this working as desired, the
answer has to be "no."
Therefore, I recommended a way in which the rating officer is forced
to consider not just the brilliant qualities but also the other ones. I
would personally prefer this in regulations and perhaps in the legisla-
tive history of this bill rather than in the text.
Mr. FASCELL. Oh, yes, I wasn't thinking of legislation.
Mr. NEUMANN. Because we are talking about an experiment.
Mr. FASCELL. I am not talking about the text of the legislation either
at this point. That will be far beyond what I would like to see in
legislation. The legislation is to lay down the broad, basic concepts
and criteria. The rest of it is up to common sense in management, but
I was not thinking about that. I was thinking about a review of
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reforms in the program so that you would institutionalize in a non-
narrative sense negative qualities in the same sense now that you rate
judgment, initiative, leadership on a scale from zero to 5 or zero to 10,
to force a rating on those negative qualities.
That is what I have in mind. Not being a personnel expert, I
wouldn't have any idea how you do that, but I think there might be a
way to do it.
Mr. NEUMANN. I would agree with the desirability of this, Mr.
Chairman. My preference would still be to put it to the officers
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, run it through the system.
Mr. NEUMANN. Run it through the system, but then have the review
panels of the Foreign Service go over the book and say, here is some-
body who has had nobody but geniuses in his commission. Let's look
into this.
Mr. FASCELL. Given the limited number of geniuses, I think it might
be a good criterion. What do you think about the current system?
Mr. NEUMANN. I do not think it is working very well. I am opposed
to it. I think it had a good purpose to elevate, for instance, economic
officers. One of the weaknesses of the Foreign Service is thinking that
political officers form a special elite. I know there are hundreds of reg-
ulations that say differently, but it ain't so.
The economic and commercial officer is not as honored in the system
as the political officer. Then there is the very difficult question of the
consular cone. It is mostly juniors who are assigned to consulate duties.
That is a good thing in many respects, because it is a tough but very
good experience. One is dealing with the dregs of humanity who have
gone into prisons and hospitals and I would hate to see an officer in the
upper ranks who has not had that experience, because an ambassador
certainly would at one time or another have some horror happening
wherehe has to step in and has to understand what the position of the
consular office is.
At the same time, consular work as such really does not go into
higher ranking jobs. To keep a person in that kind of activity is to say
that this person really is not fit for other duties.
Mr. FASCELL. With or without the current system, don't you have an
internal dynamics problem that legislation cannot address directly,
which means that as long as you do not have mobility in a small serv-
ice, and somebody has got to do the nitty gritty work, that person may
be stuck in a dull job for years ?
Mr. NEUMANN. That is true, sir. You have had assignment to these
jobs before you have had a system. What we need is a personnel system
as well as counselors to the individuals, classes of officers who seek a
change in assignment if the man is not frozen into a consular assign-
ment for 15 years.
Mr. FASCELL. So that is an internal management problem.
Mr. NEUMANN. That is an internal management problem.
Mr. FASCELL. Doesn't that also then get back to one of your ideas
about short-term time in grade? If because of the lack of mobility a
person is frozen not in job but in time, how does that solve anything?
Mr. NEUMANN. In my experience, which evidently is limited al-
though it is fairly long, this does not happen too often. The persons
are in effect competing for assignments. The rules may not say so, but
they have friends who walk the corridors. They figure out where
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there are openings. The positions in which outstanding qualities can-
not be shown are not that many. The consular officer can show out-
standing qualifications, and I have had some, fortunately, who were
just absolutely wonderful and who are now higher up in a career. They
showed those qualities already there.
You may he a class 6 or 7 officer or even 8, because there is no class 9,
but when somebody walks in from the street with a gun on you or a
defector, or when you have something involving a citizen in a very
tricky kind of situation, a decision has to be made right then and
there, and it had better be right.
Mr. FASCELL. With the personnel system of any given agency as an
inverted cone, and a given rate of flow from the top due to separation,
and a given rate of flow coming in at'the bottom, and no change in num-
bers because of OMB requirements or OPM requirements or the Con-
gress or whatever it is, the only opportunity available for mobility is
to move people inside the system. Now, whether that gives you upward
mobility or not is something else again, because the rate of time and
grade is dictated, if you are going to keep people from moving out at
the top.
Mr. NEUMANN. You have the 60-year out. You have the necessary
narrowing from the fact that there are only so many Presidential ap-
pointments available, so you have the weeding out. All that I think
is essential to merit the assignments of people, whether you have a cone
system ? or not, is to give people a chance not only to show what they
can do, but also to learn. The Foreign Service, like many other things,
is a constant learning experience, and some people look at the ability
to learn and turn it away, and some are eager to jump to it. That is
where the difference comes to.
I think the system is manageable.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Derwinski.
Mr. DERWINSKI. Mr. Ambassador, I would like to get your specific
recommendations, and then tie them back through your general com-
mentary. There are a couple of points you made which I think are
very practical. If I could have you look at page 12 of your testimony,
the second paragraph, where you speak of middle grade and junior
officers who have assignments "in which they must deal with foreign
officials who outrank them in grade. What you are really saying is,
where there is a certain amount of protocol, a standoffish attitude of
a person with a superior title, and their reluctance to deal with some-
one of a lesser title, that ties into your other recommendation that we
accelerate promotion by title.
Now, would you tie these two points together? You didn't in your
statement, but it seems to me that that would be your solution;
wouldn't it? To -give people title increases rather than pay increases
along the way. Just to have these more impressive titles, they are able
to deal more effectively with equivalent foreign officials.
Mr. NEUnMANN. First of all, on dealing with foreign officials, you
are sneaking, for instance, about my experience in the Middle East
and South Asia. Those are in young countries where officials are young
in years, but often of very high ranks. This lies in the nature of the
birth rate and the education and so forth. There also are civilizations
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which are highly rank-conscious, and there is a certain difficulty in
relating an officer with very junior rank to one with a very high one.
After a while, he overcomes it if he is outstanding, because the
qualities win out over rank, but not in the beginning, and he may not
have another chance.
Secondly, there is a certain amount of entertaining involved, and
the entertainment allowance is never sufficient in any rank. Especially
junior officers or middle-grade officers frequently have to dip into or
usually have to dip into their pockets. Certainly I did as ambassador
and I did not entertain lavishly, and I have a wife who is a good
manager.
But I was speaking not just of rank in the embassy, which would be
first, second, or third secretary or consul, and so forth, because that
corresponds to other criteria, but I was speaking of grades and class,
because believe me, the foreign officials know thoroughly what class
one belongs to, just as we know where they stand in their pecking order.
My remark was for promotions in the Foreign Service, and not to
titles. That is a separate question. The titles in missions, Mr. Der-
winski, are sort of an old-fashioned one. You have an ambassador
or Minister and the first or second or third secretary from the days
in the 18th century, where that was all that you had. Many of these
titles are figurative, and have no practical significance.
Mr. DERWINSKI. Just as an aside, I share your concern that we have
been rather miserly with the representation allowance of our personnel
abroad.
Mr. NEUMANN. Did I say that?
Mr. DERWINSKI. Well, you talked about having to dip into your
own pocket, and I personally feel that we should be much more liberal
in that regard, but that has nothing to do, of course, with this
legislation.
What about the point you discussed, and here I am referring spe-
cifically to page 19 of your testimony, in the first paragraph, where you
specifically mentioned the Kissinger administration and, the unac-
ceptability for the Secretary of having top-level officials associated
with him who might be critical of any of his policies.
I understand he is known as a man of substantial ego, but you did
imply that certain appointments of younger officers in this adminis-
tration would produce a different effect because of the age difference.
They do not seek the counsel of subordinates who are much older than
they are.
Mr. NEUMANN. I said two different things. One is, Secretary
Kissinger had outstanding qualities, but he did not suffer from a lack
of confidence that he was right.
Mr. DERWINSKI. You are being the typical professor. [Genera)
laughter.]
Mr. NEUMANN. I will let that pass. [General laughter.]
There were many interesting situations in which people who did not
share his views found themselves disadvantaged. This is perhaps
another subject, but there is something bigger in not only the Foreign
Services but in any system. Policymakers can argue only so long and
eventually have to decide. Sometimes there is great presure as if there
were the unwritten footnote, take all the time you want, say 3 minutes.
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In such a situation of pressure, the critic is not welcome. The dividing
line between constructive criticism and obstructing is a very fine one.
I think Foreign Service officers by and large know that dividing
line, but some are more sensitive than others. There is, therefore, the
danger, and I know cases of that, where an officer was doing his duty
and yet was disadvantaged. I will give one example, but I won't name
names. I think that will keep me out of court.
In Pakistan-I am speaking now of a country in which I was not
Ambassador, but next door-there was always tension before the war
of 1971 between the Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulate General
in Dacca, which was then called East Pakistan, and is now Bangladesh.
When the rebellion which led to war started, the Consul General in
Dacca reported accurately that atrocities were committed. This was
not welcome in our Embassy. That man's career did not profit from
that. He spoke up. He warned. He was right, and sometimes in every
service, military or what have you, it is dangerous to be right. Even in
married life, this can happen. [General laughter.]
Mr. DERWINSKI. How well I know. [General laughter.]
I was interested in your testimony. I gather you have gone far
beyond the bill which you dealt with overall what you say is a needed
but perhaps just partial reform. Would that sum up your viewpoint?
Mr. NEUMANN. You read me exactly right.
Mr. DERwiNSxi. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Nothing.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Madame Chairwoman.
Mr. Ambassador, I would just like to compliment you on what I
think is an extraordinarily thoughtful analysis, particularly of the
very personal aspects of the Foreign Service system, and I couldn't
agree more wholeheartedly with the observations about the cone sys-
tem. I think cones are for Good Humor men and not for the Secretary
of State.
I would like to follow up on one comment that you made in response
to another question, and ask if you could elaborate on it as applied to
the morale problem in the Foreign Service.
As you know, this administration has made some controversial for-
eign policy decisions, but putting aside the substance of the decisions,
you implied that there are some institutional aspects of decisionmak-
ing that are troublesome to you. Could you comment on those institu-
tional aspects that bear on morale?,
Mr. NEUMANN. Yes. There is always a built-in tension between the
State Department and the White House. This is probably inevitable,
and has gotten, worse in recent decades, because of the change of the
political system. The elected President, whoever he is and whatever
party, comes into office surrounded by a group of young and eager
aides, campaign aides who now believe that the world will change
because they are there. They have a mandate. They were elected, and
this is, after all, pretty powerful.
The State Department-not just the State Department, but the
Defense Foreign Minister and the British or the Russian-it is amaz-
ing how much we are alike there. It is a very depressing idea. They
all believe that foreign policy has to rest on continuity and predict-
ability, and not on violent gyrations.
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There is between the State Department and the White House a
built-in conflict which is, I find, constructive. It is kind of a rage
which teaches, because there is on the part of not only the Foreign
Service but any foreign service always an excessive belief that one
should do things the way they have always been done. One should not
worsen relations with other countries, even when you ought to worsen
them.
On the other hand, there is a political impulse toward rapid and
sometimes dramatic changes. The two impulses have to rub against
each other. Sometimes the Foreign Service feels cut out of the deci-
sion. This has been true under several administrations. The profes-
sional Foreign Service thinks the White House is somewhat unprofes-
sional, and vice versa.
Mr. LEACH. In your testimony, you discussed the serious threat of
politicization of the Foreign Service. For example, you said the 5 and
6 levels have had an increased number of political appointments dur-
Zfd this this administration. Do you consider that to be a serious problem,
how extensive is it?
Mr. NEUMANN. It is extensive and it is serious. It is not necessarily
precedent-setting, because such appointments are Presidential deci-
sions. I hope that future administrations, whether it is Mr. Carter or
somebody else, will reconsider this. In terms of an already existing
glut, it means another cutting in on the few promotable positions
which are available. The glut did not happen overnight. It took us
a long time to recognize it.
Mr. LEACH. One of the most thoughtful observations you made, I
thought, related to the principle of double promotions. In fact, last
year, in the Civil Service reform bill, I submitted an amendment
which was accepted on double promotions in the Civil Service, but
which got lost in the House-Senate conference.
I think that is a very, very positive suggestion. Frankly, I would
hope we could incorporate that type of wording within this particular
bill. It strikes me as one of the most worthwhile ways of recognizing
the very best in the career service.
Mr. NEUMANN. Thank you, Mr. Leach. I would like to add that I
have received in recent years, in this year let us say, inquiries from
young foreign services officers in the middle grades about advice of
possibly seeking other careers because of that very thing. Those are
all people who I hope would not be lost to the Foreign Service.
Mr. LEACH. Let me just ask to go a little bit further. One of the
problems is the demography in the Foreign Service. You have a glut
of people at the top agewise. Clearly the administration has recom-
mended to us, and you have indicated that you are in sympathy with,
the prospect of mandatory retirement based on age. Are there institu-
tional ways that can get at the very same thing in a nonpersonal way?
We stress nonpersonal because you emphasized it so often occurs that
it is very difficult for bosses to tell subordinates they are through.
In abstract, it is easy to say that mandatory retirement in the For-
eign Service should be handled by good management, but it is often
difficult to have confidence in that approach. For example, could one
enforce earlier retirements without setting a mandatory retirement
age by abbreviating time in class and then making extensions allow-
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able only up to a given percentage? Would that type of approach get
at the same end, or would you think that would have inherent practical
problems?
Mr. NEUMANN. Of course, in the upper ratings, the suggested sys-
tem of the Senior Foreign Service has that effect by the setting of
quotas. I have addressed myself to that. In the junior and middle rate,
I think the time in grade could in some instances be shortened. I am
not too certain about that. What is done in some industries and some
universities is that some organized assistance is given to people who
may be quite adequate but not quite good enough, assistance to find
other careers for them so that the human problem is answered. Per-
haps this could be done here. But if you want an excellent service,
some people will not make it. There is no way out. We were created
equal by opportunity, but not by capability.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you. I agree with that observation. I might only
say that your presence before us certainly vindicates the price of hav-
ing some noncareer ambassadors. We are honored you took the time
to testify.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Congressman Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I want to thank you for your testimony. I have read all of it, but I
apologize for being out of the room for some of it.
Let me ask you, you suggest that there should be a parachute clause.
Would not this increase the problem of the glut in the upper ranks of
the Foreign Service?
Mr. NEUMANN. Yes, Mr. Buchanan, and I have admitted that I am
guilty of contradiction in the dilemma. If one were sure of perfect
evaluations, I would drop the parachute clause, but because of the
danger that some people who are good may nevertheless fall by the
wayside, especially when the quotas are small, I wanted to raise that
point.
I am not making it as a strong point, and I am frankly divided
within myself. Fortunately, it is you who will decide and not I. Your
point is well taken. This is also in the view of management. I am
a little bit torn here.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
I appreciate very much your testimony. You make a point that we
have had a good many amendments offered around here to require
the language capability of various persons, and I was particularly
taken with your point that while it was important if you have some-
thing to say, if you don't have anything to say, that it would be ap-
parent more quickly if you spoke the language. I must say I found
some merit in that remark.
Mr. NEUMANN. If I may extend it a little bit, I would like to say
that I speak personally three languages completely fluently, two others
fairly well, and two others badly, not counting Latin and Greek, so
I am attuned toward language capabilities, but it varies greatly. Now,
in a French-speaking area it is simply senseless to appoint somebody
who does not speak French, because the French are arrogant about
their language. But you are just not there when it comes to a difficult
language like Arabic and Persian, which I know somewhat. There, to
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require knowledge of the language is asking an awful lot. The SSI
of. course, in Arabic is 20 or 22 months.
Now, fortunately, there are many posts where Arabic is required,
but when it comes to Persian, that is spoken in only two countries, Iran
and Afghanistan. That is quite a disincentive. In some countries, for
instance, in Saudi Arabia, some of the top structure of the country is
not quite comfortable in English. Many people are. Also, there are
countries where a King or a President feels that he ought not to speak
in a foreign language even if he understands it quite well. There you
are heavily handicapped if you do not speak the language. If you work
through an interpreter, then you work through smebody who, if he
is not from your own staff, you never know how he interprets, and I
have seen some very spectacular examples of misinterpretation, some of
them intentional.
In one country, which I will not mention, not one to which I was
assigned, the chief interpreter has a power position which is quite un-
paralleled and which has in effect put a barrier between the Ambas-
sador and the people with whom he has to deal.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, somebody who speaks only Southern Baptist
needs an interpreter. I certainly appreciate what you are saying.
[General laughter.]
Mr. NEUMANN. That is a very important language.
Mr. BUCHANAN. That is the language of our President.
[General laughter.]
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much.
Congressman Harris.
Mr. HARRIS. Thank you, Madame Chairman.
I appreciate your testimony and the insights you have given us. I
have one, perhaps two questions. I see some problems discussed in the
Foreign Service. They seem to be analogous to some of the problems we
have in our military. As far as the concept of up or out, how does that
relate to your testimony? Do you think up or out type of policy is
beneficial to the Foreign Service?
Mr. NEUMANN. Yes, sir, I do. You cannot have excellence unless
there is an up or out policy. There is no excellence if you are kept in the
same class for a long time. In the military service, of course, you have
the additional necessity that you cannot have an army in which people
are beyond the age in which they can physicially perform. The mental
performance is not always related to age. But I see no other way. In
other words, yes.
Mr. HARRIS. I have always wondered. I recently have had the experi-
ence of discussing problems with the military over the weekend. I
often wondered, though, if there isn't a type of person who is an ex-
cellent captain that we really sort of destroy by promoting to major.
Why shouldn't there be those who can have a career as a captain with-
out being promoted to major?
Mr. NEUMANN. The point is well taken, Mr. Harris, but first of all,
in the combat services, you wouldn't want a 50-year-old captain com-
manding an infantry company.
Mr. HARRIS. Excuse me for speaking that way, but why do we insist
on application of the "Peter Principle" with regard to the Foreign
Service? Do we continue to promote someone until he has reached his
level of incompetence?
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Mr. NEUMANN. I have found this is frequently true, although noth-
ing that anybody says will always be true with human beings. If you
keep a person in grade for a very, very long time, he is likely to get
more frigid, dissatisfied with life, and less useful.
Mr. FASCELL. How long have you been in public office, Mr.
Neumann?
Mr. NEUMANN. Not long enough. I declare myself incompetent on
that. [General laughter.]
I think there are sufficient regulations which allow flexibility for
the one unusual person, and of course we got to the question of special-
ists who have an unusual and very valuable specialty which is not pro-
motable by its nature, but the Foreign Service does not have too many
of those, and there are other ways of making them available.
Mr. HARRIS. You were speaking of the one a while back. I was trying
to visualize government in general terms. If we picture each agencyy
as a cone, and we had to work with personnel on a series of cones,
was wondering if there isn't vertical mobility between the Foreign
Service and other elements of the Government just as there is with
other agencies. I have known people who were trade fair specialists
in the Department of Agriculture who got a better job in the Depart-
ment of Commerce. Is there a special problem with. the Foreign
Service, that that type of mobility is not possible, that they have to
fund upward mobility within a particular cone?
Mr. NEUMANN. The point is well taken. I think there is a problem.
I do not look to other Government agencies or departments as pro-
motional opportunities, but I do think we could-especially if my
recommendation of more promotions even if there are no slots were
adopted-find a temporary place for a Foreign Service officer in State
and county government. It would be very good for him. Or even-now,
this is very difficult to manage-in industry or in a bank.
It is very important that a Foreign Service officer when he goes
abroad has a good grasp of the realities, political, economic, employ-
ment, the whole.
I personally would love, if it were possible, for most of the better
economic counselors to have had a couple of years in a bank or in a
major business. This has certain problems, but certainly I think they
could serve in State government, even local government-and I think
there have been some such cases-as well as in other Federal agencies.
I know of one former officer in one of my embassies who is still
in the Foreign Service, but working in the Environmental Protection
Agency, and he finds that very absorbing.
There is one danger, of course, which is the same as in the military
service for attaches. That is, while one is out of line, promotion be-
comes much more difficult. But again here, management can improve
that. This is not something that is easily legislated or put even into
rules.
Mr. HARRIS. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much, and again, we thank the
witness for being here this morning. I think that is the last witness of
the morning, land with that, the hearings are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 9:30 a.m., in room H-236 of the Capitol,
Hon. Dante B. Fascell and Hon. Patricia Schroeder presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. We meet today to hear Mrs. Marguerite Cooper King
who is vice president for State of theWomen's Action Organization.
That does not sound right to me. Is that correct?
Mrs. KING. Vice president for State Department of the Women's
Action Organization. The Women's Action Organization covers three
agencies. We have three vice presidents.
Mr. FASCELL. Following Mrs. King's testimony we will continue
with Secretary Read.
Mrs. King, we are delighted to have you here and we will be happy
to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF MARGUERITE COOPER KING, VICE PRESIDENT FOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OF THE WOMEN'S ACTION ORGANIZATION
Mrs. KING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me tell you something about what the organization is very
briefly. The Women's Action Organization represents employees and
their spouses of the three foreign affairs agencies, State, AID, and
USICA. It began as an ad hoc group in 1970 dedicated to the removal
of discrimination from our personnel system and to promote equal
opportunity for all employees regardless of sex.
This ad hoc group to improve the status of women in the foreign
affairs agencies received the Presidential Management Improvement
Award in 1972 for the reforms it had stimulated. These included the
revision of policies and regulations to remove barriers and penalties
imposed on Foreign Service women employees who married. Up to
that time it was virtually impossible for a Foreign Service woman em-
ployee to be married or to have a dependent. It also was to prohibit
discrimination in assignments
Mr. FASCELL. What year was the ending of the dark ages?
Mrs. KTNG. 1971, sir.
To establish the right of family members to be considered private
persons and the right to work abroad amongst other reforms.
(243)
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In recent years we have supported upward mobility programs for
support and officer level employees in the civil service and the Foreign
Service, participated in the Department's review and formulation of
an affirmative action program, supported class action suits against the
Department of State for sex discrimination, sponsored the spouses'
skills data bank and the formation of the Family Liaison Office and
provided a series of programs for all employees explaining the avail-
able procedures for personal career advancement.
I come before you today on behalf of the Women's Action Organi-
zation to ask that equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment
in the Foreign Service be included as a statutory requirement of the
Foreign Service Act of 1979.
In its present form the legislation describes as an objective in sec-
tions 101 (a) (3) and (b) (2) that the Foreign Service should be repre-
sentative of the American people, operated on the basis of merit with
fair and equitable treatment for all. The Foreign Service Act of 1946
also called for a representative service but it is not now representative
in numbers, grades, functions and regions.
We have not come here to complain but to set out the facts and to
suggest some parts of the proposed legislation that need to be changed
to facilitate equal employment policies and practices to insure that
American foreign interests are represented by the best that this Nation
has to offer.
Let me speak first about women employees of the Department with
some mention of our sister agencies, AID and ICA. I will then turn
to the concerns of Foreign Service spouses, overwhelmingly but not
totally women.
Foreign Service officer-level women in the three agencies face similar
problems. They are few in number. They make up only a minuscule
proportion of the senior grades and policymaking positions. They are
not given positions commensurate with their qualifications and poten-
tial and their promotions are slower than for their male colleagues.
Let's first look at Foreign Service officers, FSO's, in the Department
of State. Women make up only 10 percent of the entire FSO Corp.
I have provided a chart so that we can see where the women are and
what kind of work the women are doing.
This is on page 16 of the attached, part of a brief filed in the U.S.
District 'Court for District of Columbia as part of two class action
suits brought against the Department.
[The information referred to follows:]
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CURRENT STATISTICAL EVIDENCE FURTHER DEMONSTRATES SYSTEMIC SEX
DISCRIMINATION BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE
1. INTAKE OF WOMEN AS FSO'S
As we have noted previously (February 17, 1978, Mem., p. 9), while 44 percent
of college graduates were women, in fiscal years 1970-77 women made up only
7 percent, 6 percent, 17 percent, 16 percent, 22 percent, 13 percent, 20 percent,
and 16 percent of the officers appointed to the Foreign Service. Memorandum
Junior Officer Intake, fiscal year 1966 through March 1977, Richard Masters,
PER/BEX, to Dudley Miller PER/REE, March 2, 1977. In 1978, only 16 percent
of the officers appointed were women. FSO Intake By Exam (By Sex), M/EEO,
10/5/78, Pl. Ex. 3. Thus, since 1975, the average intake has been only 16 percent
women. This is in spite of the fact that recent statistics show women earning
more bachelor's degrees than men in foreign area studies and foreign languages
(Report on Women in America, The United States Commission for UNESCO,
p. 16, Pl. Ex. 4) :
Foreign languages--------------------------------------------------------------- 14,879 4,600
Foreign area studies------------------------------------------------------------- 1,739 1,464
2. PLACEMENT OF WOMEN IN CONES AND PROMOTIONS
We have explained previously how the Foreign Service is divided into func-
tional fields of concentration which are referred to as cones. February 17, 1978,
Mem., p. 9. Within cones, there is further division into functions. We have previ-
ously shown that female Foreign Service officers are disproportionately placed in
cones which provide less reponsibility and are less advantageous in terms of
career advancement. Women are placed far more than men into the cones which
have fewer positions in the upper classes and which receive fewer promotions.
They therefore have far less opportunity to reach the top. See August 24, 1976,
Mem., pp. 4, 12-14; February 17, 1978, Mem., pp. 32-33; July 7, 1978, Mem., pp.
6, 7.
Department of State statistics as of December 31, 1978, and of January 31.
1979, further demonstrate this disparity. The Department's own analysis of
March 1979, shows that on December 31, 1978, only 36.4 percent of all women were
in the Executive, Program Direction, Political, or Economic/Commercial cones
or functions while 63:6 percent of the women were in the Administrative and
Consular cones. Women FSOs By Primary Skill (Cone) 12/31/78, M/EEO, 3/79,
P1. Ex. 13. In addition, the table on p. 246, derived from the Department's own
statistics, compares male and female FSOs by rank and cone or function as of
January 31, 1979, and reveals little, if any, change from earlier statistical
patterns.
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COMPARISON OF MALE AND FEMALE FSO'S BY RANK AND CONE OR FUNCTION (DATA AS OF JAN. 31, 1979)
Economic/ Rank
Political commercial totals Rank totals by sex
com-
Cone or function M F M F M F M F M F M F bleed M F
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Career Ambassador--------------------- ---------- -----------
Career Minister----------------- 14 ---- ------ - -------- --------- ;;7 7 2 ------------------------------------ ----------- 17 17 -
51 1 34 ---------- 265 257 8
FSO-1----------------------- Z/ c 110 1
FSO-2------------------------- 1 ---------- 49 ----------
FSO-3--------------------------------------------- 10 ----------
FSO-4-----------------------------------------------------------------
FSO-5-----------------------------------------------------------------
FSO-6-----------------------------------------------------------------
FSO-7-----------------------------------------------------------------
FSO-8-----------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotals (by sex)--------- 42 2 178
Function columns totals----- 44
38 2 16 1 104 1 91 2 305 299 6
104 12 49 7 289 8 182 12 673 634 39
107 14 93 19 294 12 225 11 775 719 56
93 17 114 48 216 18 103 12 621 526 95
78 24 86 49 124 12 95 21 489 383 106
36 5 44 12 17 2 38 7 161 135 26
4---------- 4 2 ------------------------------ 1 11 8 3
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In addition, there were 3 male "specialists" (doctors, lawyers, etc.) (1 FSO-1,
1 FSO-2, 1 FSO-3) and 1 female on detail (FSO-5).
Grand total FSO's as of Jan. 31, 1979: 3,321.
Data derived from Department of State computer print-out as of January 31,
1979. Pl. Ex. 5.
This most recent data shows that while 34.7 percent (1.149 officers) of all
FSOs are in the desirable and advantageous political cone, only 15.8 percent of
female FSOs (54 officers) are in that cone. Even more dramatic is the fact that
while 5.4 percent (174) of all FSOs are in the program direction cone, only 0.6
percent (1 officer) of all female FSOs are in that cone. In addition, 1.3 percent
of all FSOs (44) are in the "Executive" function but only 0.5 percent of female
FSOs (2) are in that function. Conversely, while only 16.7 percent (553 officers)
of all FSOs are in the less desirable and less advantageous consular cone, fully
41.1 percent (140 officers) of all female FSOs are in that cone. The situation has
remained the same or worsened since December 31, 1978. On that date there were
four women in the Executive function and two in program direction. Pl. Ex. 13.
Even that small representation had been halved by January 31, 1979. Thus,
women continue to be kept out of professionally desirable and advantageous
cones and functions while men are placed in the desirable and advantageous
cones and functions in disproportionate numbers.
The desirability of certain cones and functions is also evident from the table.
There were 232 FSO-1s occupying positions in the Executive function and the
Program Director, Political and Economic/Commercial cones. They constituted
87.5 percent of all FSO-1s. There were 2,073 men (69.9 percent of all men) in
these cones and functions; only 123 women (36.2 percent of all women) were
assigned to these cones and function. The administrative and consular cones
are less desirable because they have only 33 FSO-1s assigned to them. This is
only 12.4 percent of all FSO-1s and thus there is less opportunity for promotion
to that rank in those cones. Nevertheless, 63.5 percent of all women (226) are
assigned to these cones while only 30 percent of all men (895) were assigned to
them. As has been noted above, the situation essentially the same on Decem-
ber 31, 1978. Pl. Ex. 13. These figures demonstrate that women are seriously
handicapped as to promotions by their cone and function assignments.
During the years 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, and 1978, FSO promotions to the high
grades of FSO-1, FSO-2, and FSO-3 were unevenly distributed in favor of the
executive, program direction, political and economic/commercial cones and func-
tions, where most male FSOs are placed, and to the detriment of the consular and
administrative cones where most female FSOs serve. This discriminatory dis-
tribution of promotions is apparent in the following tables (Sources: Depart-
ment of State Newsletter, June 1974 and March 1975; M/EEO, 1977 and 1978 FSO
Promotions By Sex. 2/77, 4/78, Pl. Ex. 6).
PROMOTIONS IN THE EXECUTIVE, PROGRAM DIRECTION, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC/COMMERCIAL
CONES AND FUNCTIONS,
]By percent of all promotions to the class]
FSO-1-----------------------------------------
73.0
93.3
84.7
88.0
90.0
FSO-2-----------------------------------------
72.6
88.9
79.5
81.5
71.4
FSO-3-----------------------------------------
71.9
81.5
68.1
77.6
76.0
PROMOTIONS IN THE CONSULAR AND ADMINISTRATIVE CONES
. ]By percent of all promotions to the class]
0 1-----------------------------------------
27.0
6.7
15.3
12.0
10.0
0-2-----------------------------------------
27.4
11.1
19.3
18.6
23.8
0-3----------------------------------------
28.1
18.5
30.2
21.0
24.0
, The figures for 1973 and 1974 are based on materials which did not distinguish executive and program direction
omotions.
2 Plaintiffs have not been able to obtain figures for 1976.
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Since, as we have seen, women are disproportionately placed in the consular
and administrative cones, these figures again demonstrate that women are
seriously harmed by their cone and function assignments.
Analysis of male and female officers by rank further demonstrates the dis-
crimination in promotions. It remains a fact that a far higher proportion of
men than women have reached the higher grades. As we have noted before, as
of June 1974, 2.6 percent of the women and 6.8 percent of the men were FSO-1;
in 1975, the figures were 2.9 percent of the women and 8.5 percent of the men ;
and in 1976, the women and men were 3.2 percent and 9.6 percent of the FSO-1
officers respectively. As of January 31, 1979, 2.4 percent of women were FSO-1s
while 8.6 percent of men were in that grade. For 1974 through 1976, the per-
centages of women and men who were FSO-2s were 2.2 percent/11 percent,
2.2 percent/10.2 percent, 2.4 percent/9.5 percent. As of January 31, 1979, the
percentages were 1.8 and 10.0, respectively. In grade FSO-3, during the years
1974-76, the percentage of women and men were 12.1 percent/19.2 percent, 9.3
percent/19.5 percent and 10.5 percent/21.7 percent. As of January 31, 1979,
the figures for FSO-3s were 11.5 percent of women and 21.3 percent of men.
Department of State, M/EEO, Department of State Comparison of Status of
Women Employees-By Grades and Pay Plans as of 12/31/74 and 12/31/75,
p. 3 (March 1976) ; Department of State, M/EEO, Department of State Com-
parison of Status of Women Employees-By Grades and Pay Plans as of 12/31/75
and 12/31/76, p. 3 (March 1977) ; Table from p. 16. Thus, the proportion of
women in each of these high grades has actually declined since 1974.
As of 1974, 38 percent of the men had attained class 3 or higher and 16.9 per-
cent of the women had done so. The most recent data, as of January 31, 1979,
show that 39.9 percent of men were in grades FSO-1 through FSO-3 while
only 15.7 percent of women held those ranks. Thus, again the disparities ac-
tually increased.
The distribution of male and female Foreign Service officers within each
cone also shows that the women are disproportionately in the lower grades.
For instance, in the political cone, as of June 1974, 34.4 percent of the men and
only 17 percent of the women were in classes 1 through 3. In contrast, 66.1 per-
cent of the women and only 34.1 percent of the men were in classes 5 through
7. Department of State, M/WA, Women FSO's by Cone as of 6/30/74. As of
January 31, 1979, 40.5 percent of the men in the political cone were in classes
1 through 3 while only 15.0 percent of women in the political cone were in
those classes. Classes 5 through 7 had only 32.6 percent of the men but had.
48.5 percent of the women.
3. ASSIGNMENT TO KEY POSITIONS
We have previously shown a pattern of assigning women to the least critical.
positions available to individuals at that level and to the least important as..
signments within a particular job category. February 17, 1978, Mem., p. 13. This
pattern continues. For instance, as of November 1978, there were only four
career female FSOs who were ambassadors and none of them were assigned.
to Class I missions. Instead they held ambassadorships to Surinam, Mali and
Papua, New Guinea (three of the smallest, and least important embassies) and
Finland. Department of State, M/EEO, Some Women in Key Positions (Novem..
her 1978), Pl. Ex. 7.
Women principal officers (in charge of subordinate posts within a country) are
located in Cebu, Izmir, Zanzibar, Monterrey, Mazatlan and Perth. Ibid. None
'of these .cities are major posts and most people would be hard-pressed to locate
them on a map of the world. Women Deputy Chiefs of Mission are located in.
Suva and Wellington, two obscure and insignificant posts. Ibid. Women are
counselors of Embassy (in charge of a section) in only three posts. Ibid.
In the United States, ten upper echelon women are assigned to administrative
jobs and two have jobs in the consular cone. Ibid. As we have seen above, these are
the least desirable areas of the Department. Only six women have high-ranking
jobs in the political area and only one has a high-ranking position, in the Bureau.
of Economic Affairs, Ibid.
4. APPOINTMENT TO MIDDLE-LEVEL POSITIONS
The Middle-Level hiring program is supposed to be an affirmative action pro-
gram for women and members of the minority groups. It brings people in ae
reserve officers in classes 3, 4, and 5. Even within this program, however, women.
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are not receiving equal treatment with men in that, as a group, they are being
hired at lower ranks and at lower "steps" (pay levels) within ranks. As of
January 1, 1979, 82.6 percent (23) of all women hired in the Middle-Level pro-
grain came into the Foreign Service at the class 5 level. Only 13 percent (3) came
in as class 4 officers and only 4.3 percent (1) was in class 3. In contrast 53 per-
cent (8) of the men were hired for class 5 while 40 percent (6) came into class 4
and 6.6 (1) was a male class three officer. Therefore, although the program is
intended to improve the balance of women as compared to men in the mid-grades,
in fact it is increasing the imbalance because women are being hired in dispro-
portionate numbers at the lowest grades, compared to the men being being
appointed. M/EEO, Middle Level Hires as of 8/15/78 and 1/1/79, Pl. Ex. 8.
There is also a significant difference between women and men in the step level
within each grade. Of the 19 women hired as FSR-5, 63 percent were hired at
FSR-5/4 or below. The same pattern is repeated in the hiring of FSR-4. 100
percent of the women were hired at FSR-4/4 or below, whereas only 33 percent
of the men were hired at FSR-4/4 or below. Ibid.
ADDITIONAL CURRENT EVIDENCE OF SYSTEMIC SEX DISCRIMINATION WITHIN THE
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Both the Department of State itself and the Justice Department Task Force on
Sex Discrimination in the Federal Government have found important aspects
of systemic sex discrimination in the Department.
1. FAILURE TO ACCORD WOMEN EQUAL PROFESSIONAL STATURE
A survey of overseas posts by the Equal Employment Opportunity Office of the
Department of State found that female officers in some cases did not even attend
country team or staff meetings, were kept poorly informed about activities and
issues, and were only rarely included. in policy-making. Department of State
Newsletter, October 1978, pp. 23-24, Pl. Ex. 9. The Justice Department Task Force
noted that "the participation of women as official delegates [to international con-
ferences] remains very low," that "women professionals are often given less
substantive work than are male counterparts," and that "[w]omen generally
have less private office space than men." Interim Report to the President by the
Task Force on Sex Discrimination, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of
Justice, October 3,1978, Pl. Ex. 10, pp. 245, 150.
2. FAILURE TO ASSIGN WOMEN IN A NON-DISCRIMINATORY MANNER
The Justice. Department Task Force stated that "the Department continues
to fail to assign women to certain, countries as a result of traditions and cul-
tures of the receiving country." Pl. Ex. 10, p. 242. It also noted that this violates
a Presidential Memorandum that all overseas assignments are to be made in a
non-discriminatory manner. Ibid.
The Director of Equal Employment Opportunity for the Department, Under
Secretary of State for Management Ben H. Read, has acknowledged publicly
that the Department has been failing in its efforts to bring representative num-
bers of women into the FSO corps. Speaking at the Department's "Open Forum,"
he said (Department of State Newsletter, March 1978, p. 57, Pl. Ex. 11) :
It showed * * * the percentage of women up to 9 percent * * * [an
increase of] 3 percent, in an entire decade. The mid-level affirmative action
program to which you refer, was instituted in 1975, [with] a goal of 20-10
minority, 10 women-in each year. The grand total of 17 had been taken
in by the end of the last fiscal year and, as of then and as of today, there has
not been one conversion [from reserve to FSO status] from that group.
* * * The * * * comparison is very, very modest * *
It should be noted that in 1959 and 1960 9 percent of all FSOs were women.
M/EEO Women Foreign Service Officers (FSO), Twenty-Year Study, 2/78, P1.
Ex. 12. Thus, all that the Department has accomplished is to get back to the
level which had been achieved in those years. As Mr. Read tacitly acknowledges,
this hardly corrects the discrimination which women have suffered.
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CONCLUSION
For the reason stated above, the accompanying evidence, and the memoranda
of August 24, 1976, February 17, 1978, and July 7, 1978, we respectfully sub-
mit that Plaintiffs' Motions for Orders Certifying these suits as Class Actions
should be granted and that the class certified should consist of all present and
future female Foreign Service Officers and applicants.
BRUCE J. TERRIs,
DELMAR KARLEN, Jr.
Attorneys for Plaintiffs.
Mrs. KING. Before going to the chart I want to draw some distinc-
tions between the personnel systems of the Foreign Service and the
civil service.
In the former, there are eight Foreign Service officer grades plus
Career Minister going from the bottom, an FSO-8 to the top, an
FSO-1. Career Minister. We do not have any women career ministers.
Second, unlike the civil service, Foreign Service personnel are not
hired for a specific position in which they may hope to move up to
increasing responsibility. Foreign Service officers are considered gen-
eralists. They are given certain specialties or functions and periodic
assignments, usually within that broad specialty.
To go back to the chart, it tilts south by west; most women are in
junior grades, FSO-8 to 5. There is a dearth of women in the senior
grades. Only 2.4 percent of all women FSO's are at the FSO-1 level
and 1.8 percent are at the FSO-2 level. For purposes of camparison,
those percentages for men FSO's are 8.6 percent and 10 percent,
respectively.
I wish I could say that we are doing at least better than before. That
is not true. The percentage of women is actually decreasing in the
top grades as detailed on pages 19 and 20 of the attached brief. I
would be glad to explain that later if you like.
The chart also shows that women have been placed in career cate-
gories, specialties or functions, where the opportunities for advance-
ment are severely limited. Senior grades are concentrated in the
executive, program management, political and economic/commercial
functions. Where are all the women found? The relationship between
function and promotion is analyzed on pages 17 and 18 of the attached.
There appears to be no rational, performance-related reasons for
such concentrations based on sex. Until there is a more equal distribu-
tion, women cannot hope to advance to the top in comparable per-
centages with their male colleagues nor can management be assured
that they are getting the best personnel at the highest level of our
career service.
Key to advancement is assignments, made for each officer on the
average of every 2 years. It is the way you gain additional experience
and responsibility, learning how to deal with the varied and complex
aspects of our foreign relations, to negotiate, represent, and develop
policy on behalf of your country. Yet the assignment process is over-
whelmingly in the hands of men where the "old boy" network per-
petuates the selection of a few for the best positions without requiring
open competition among all qualified candidates.
In competing for assignments women candidates face several road-
blocks, obstacles that exist largely in the minds of the men and the few
women making personnel decisions. Women are not given supervisory
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positions generally; they fail to recognize the leadership qualities in
women and often presume men do not like being supervised by women.
Stereotypes about what kind of work is appropriate or natural to
women limit their assignment choices. Let me give you some examples.
Women are seen as personnel or consular officers but not as labor or
political-military officers. Such stereotypes ignore individual qualifi-
cations and limit assignments for women.
Gallant but old-fashioned assignment officers are often reluctant to
assign women officers to hardship or hazardous posts. Women took the
same oath of office and expect to take their fair share of such duty.
Such assignments can often be career advancing. It is this same old-
fashioned attitude that makes assignment officers believe that women
officers cannot be effective in countries where local law and/or custom
accord low status to their women. The problem I assert, is in the minds
of American personnel officers rather than in the minds of other diplo-
mats and host country officials.
Women have served with excellence in every part of the globe in-
cluding the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. My per-
sonal experience has been that the prestige of the U.S. diplomatic corps
is universal and that personal competence and skills, not sex, are the
basic criteria for success as a diplomat as in any other career.
The effect of such bias in assignments has been to limit the opportu-
nities for women and to fail to use efficiently the resources of the For-
eign Service.
A study by my organization in 1975 showed that of all senior For-
eign Service career women officers in all pay plans, 43 percent were
serving in positions at least one grade beneath their personal rank.
This is most graphically illustrated by career ambassadorial assign-
ments. Not only are women chiefs of mission few and far between, cur-
rently six career women are such, but they are appointed to those
countries to which we assign the lowest level of priority and impor-
tance in U.S. foreign relations. That is explained in detail on page 20
of the attached.
We have four classes of posts, class I is the highest and class IV is
the bottom. I do not know if there has ever been a career woman
officer assigned to a class I post and I think most of them have been
class IV posts in our entire 200-year history.
There are other officer categories in the Foreign Service. The reserve
limited and unlimited officer categories and Foreign Service Staff
officers face the same stereotypes by personnel officers that limit wom-
en's entry, assignments, and promotions in disregard of their indi-
vidual qualifications and potential.
Most women in the Foreign Service are secretaries at the staff or
support level below the officer grades. The president of the American
Foreign Service Association, Lars Hydal, mentioned these problems
on July 9.
We agree that they are deprived of appropriate professional status,
adequate pay including compensation for long overtime and standby
duty and that they are unfairly hit by local duties and taxes their
higher salaried officer colleagues are exempt from.
We support his call for priority negotiations by the Secretary to
protect noncommissioned employees from such local duties and taxes
and for increased funds to insure appropriate language and area train-
ing for staff personnel.
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In addition to these problems related to the secretarial profession,
Staff Corps women are also disadvantaged in comparison with their
male colleagues. In promotions in 1977, 67 percent of all Staff Corps
women were eligible for promotion against 33 percent for men; yet
their promotions were only 11.6 percent compared to 16 percent for
men. In part, this is because men are concentrated in staff functions
that have higher career ceilings than women. Women have difficulty
breaking into those functions. Again, a problem of concentration in
certain functions.
There is a large segment of the Department of State work force
that is civil service. While we are here to address an act titled and al-
most entirely concerned with the Foreign Service, in State the civil
service is a little over one-third the size of the Foreign Service, 3,632
versus 9,161.
The civil service component at State has historically been neglected.
That was the finding of a 1975 Civil Service Commission study, "Per-
sonnel Management in the Department of State," which went on to
say that -"performance evaluation and training of civil service em-
ployees is ineffective, lacks adequate planning and followthrough
and fails to meet even minimum requirements." It also said that "pro-
motion program administration fails to meet even basic and minimal
merit system requirements, causing serious violations and providing
no assurance to management that the best qualified are selected and no
assurance to the employees that they are being equitably considered."
Civil service women are overwhelmingly at the bottom of the ladder,
only 6 percent of all civil service women employees at State are at
the senior and the middle levels, 43 percent are GS-7 through 11 and
51 percent are GS-6 and below.
Because of the slow pace of progress, in 1976 we decided that it was
necessary to seek justice by going outside of the Department. We
had until then prided ourselves that we worked with management for
reform from within.
We joined in support of a class action suit charging systemic dis-
crimination by the Department against women FSO's. After almost
3 years, that and a parallel suit have just been certified for class action
last month. The Department has failed to respond to the issues and
sought endless delays.
We must in honesty look at this situation from a historical per-
spective. So long as women had to be single as a condition of employ-
ment in the Foreign Service, this was not going to be an attractive
career.
Women employees' position today is the accumulated result of many
years of discrimination that cannot be overturned at once. We believe
that we must begin by ending current practices of discrimination and
locating skills and resources that are now underutilized and take
affirmative action to place those resources where we need them to get
the job done.
For many years affirmative action plans have been time consuming
but largely ineffectual exercises. The Department paid only lipservice
to equal opportunity. Senior leaders made pronouncements that were
ignored in practice. Secretary Vance made a new attempt when he
came aboard and formed an executive level task force on affirmative
action.
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The Women's Action Organization provided studies and suggested
remedies. Although not as specific or effective as we had hoped, we
joined with several employee groups representing minorities in sup-
port of the task force recommendations. Those were emasculated along
the road when they were turned over to the career ranks to translate
into specific plans of action.
Let me say that there were two areas in the affirmative action plan
as it made its way down into the plans for implementation that were
progress of some sort.
On the civil service side, they started an upward mobility program
for lower level civil service employees, GS-7 and below. They
strengthened a merit promotion system that they had begun several
years earlier. Those are two things on the civil service side that came
through that plan.
On the Foreign Service side, the only part that we would really
consider affirmative action was support for the special EEO hiring
programs that brought in 20 at the junior level and 20 at the middle
level without having to go through the written examination process.
The reason why the goals and recommendations that the Secretary
had supported did not make it through the bureaucracy is, I believe,
that those in the career service who believe in those stereotypes and
do not realize that their gallantry is a form of discrimination were
unlikely to come up with recommendations and relevant affirmative
actions that would address the special problems of women and minor-
ities. Even the surviving recommendations of modest effect were
attacked and challenged by our own professional association, AFSA.
This is a bleak picture indeed and it is no better for minorities at
State. I wish I could tell, you that the Department is moving toward
becoming an equal opportunity employer. As you can see from my
prepared text, it is not.
I do not mean to imply that there has been no progress, but the
progress is so slow that even if maintained for 10 years at an acceler-
ated pace, it would still leave the Foreign Service unrepresentative.
They are bringing in more women officers, 16 percent per year.
How long would it take you to bring in 100 percent per year to come
up with something that begins to be reflective of the percentage of
women in the work force and women in American society in similar
kinds of responsibilities?
I do want to record our appreciation for Secretary Vance's per-
sonal attention and leadership in awakening in State some realiza-
tion that the present distribution of rewards and responsibilities
reflects a bong history of bias and Assistant Secretary Moose's wise
leadership of the original affirmative action task force.
It should be clear from the above that the Department on its own
is unable or unwilling to carry out the goals mentioned in the first
chapter of the proposed act, to be representative of the American
people, to insure merit principles for selection and advancement and
equal opportunity in all aspects of employment. The Office of Eoual
Employment Opportunity is not mentioned in the bill. Its mandate
needs to be strengthened.
More than that, equal opportunity in all aspects of employment
must be required under the law you are now considering. For that
purpose we propose the following changes.
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Section 301 under "General Requirements of Appointment," part
(b) should add "equal opportunity" following "merit" to read "in
accordance with the merit and equal opportunity principles."
Ip section 511, "Assignments to Foreign Service Positions," part
(a), add "and equal opportunity" following "merit" so that it would
read "in accordance with merit and equal opportunity principles."
In section 601, "Promotions Based on Merit," part (a), add "and
equal opportunity" following "merit" to read "shall be based on
merit and equal opportunity principles."
Let me divert from my prepared speech to tell you one of the rea-
sons why this emphasis is terribly important and more important
than I understood when I wrote my testimony.
The American Foreign Service Association has asserted that the
Department is exempt from existing EEO laws and regulations and
particularly the Executive order relating to affirmative action. As
AFSA's testimony has made evident to you, they have argued repeat-
edly that equal employment opportunity is somehow distinct from
or even opposite to merit principles.
We opposed their proposed amendment to section 101 (a) (3) that
would add "members of the Foreign Service." AFSA's comments on
section 101(b) (2) are obviously meant to prohibit affirmative action.
This would be contrary to the merit principles of section V, section
2302(d) of title V of the United States Code which says nothing in
this section shall be construed to prevent affirmative action.
In order to clarify the law's intent, section 102(7) under "Defini-
tions" regarding merit principles, should identify not only section 2301
but also section 2302 of title V. It is the latter section which prohibits
discrimination and protects affirmative action. I don't know why the
Department's proposed text cites only section 2301. Why not section
2302 also? I do not know.
Or there should be a new section in the law that specifies that noth-
ing in this act is intended to rescind or supersede any existing law or
regulation with regard to equal employment opportunity. As long as
our professional association is saying that the Foreign Service is not
covered by any statute, that it is not bound by any Executive order on
any regulations or equal employment in the Department of State or
Foreign Service, I think we need to do something about that.
In order to insure oversight and implementation of this respon-
sibility for the Department as a whole, it is proposed that the Inspector
General's responsibilities should include an examination of whether
merit and equal opportunity principles have been observed in the man-
agement of the Department and missions abroad. That would be added
to section 205 (a).
The act calls for maximum compatibility among the personnel sys-
tems of State, AID, and ICA. I regret to assure you that women For-
eign Service employees of those agencies also face discrimination in
all aspects of employment.
AID lags behind both State and ICA in the proportion of women
in the senior ranks. In AID, women are generally absent from policy
positions and from midlevel positions with significant program and
policy roles; entering junior officer classes have included few women
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255
and AID does not provide adequate opportunities for low- and mid-
level women with needed skills, interest, and potential to advance.
That is to say AID has a need for certain categories of employees such
as sociologists. They have employees who are secretaries who have de-
grees in those subjects and they are not using them.
Mr. FASCEL.L. It sounds like the Army.
Mrs. KING. There you go.
In recent years the position of Foreign Service career women has
deteriorated within AID while the civil service women have remained
stationary. It is with considerable misgivings that women in AID con-
template a change in the Agency's personnel system toward one more
heavily staffed under Foreign Service than under the civil service
rules.
In ICA, the percentage of women Foreign Service information offi-
cers, FSIO's is 16 percent. That is slightly better than the comparable
figure for State which was 10 percent. They are concentrated in the
cultural rather than informational functions. There is the now famil-
iar dearth of women in the senior grades, policy, and managerial
positions and there is discrimination in assignments to certain geo-
graphical regions.
Women in the civil service are clustered in the lower ranks and in
certain sex-stereotyped functions. ICA Foreign Service secretaries
have many of the same problems as their State counterparts. 'This sit-
uation has not changed basically in the past 2 years except slightly
downward for a decrease in the intake of women as junior officers and
in women civil service officers at the middle level.
Given the familiar pattern of discrimination and lack of progress
toward equality of opportunity, we suggest that the Board of the
Foreign Service with an interagency mandate for Foreign Service
personnel include "in its responsibilities the promotion of personnel
policies and practices based on merit and equal opportunity principles.
That is section 206.
While we support a strong professional association to represent em-
ployees' concerns, we have often found AFSA unsympathetic to the
concerns of women officers and spouses. We understand their feelings
against what has been called "reverse discrimination" and believe
steps taken in the name of affirmative action in other places have some-
times been foolish.
We believe the Women's Action Organization has been responsive to
these fears and have proposed remedial actions that would generally
open up competition so that women and minorities could compete on
the basis of merit.
So long as AFSA's membership is preponderantly white males, we
will continue to have misgivings about its willingness to represent our
interests. For the moment, we have no proposed changes to suggest in
the proposed act relating to labor-management relations but are
studying them to insure that our rights are protected. We will do that
study in August and will get back to you in September.
Before I conclude, let me say something on behalf of Foreign Serv-
ice family members. We sponsored the soouses' skills bank because
we support the employment abroad of spouses and believe that the
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Department is the loser when it fails to recognize spouses as potential
employees and is being just arbitrary and unjust when it places ob-
stacles in the way of their employment outside of the mission.
We worked alongside the American Association of Foreign Service
Women for the creation of the Family Liaison Office in the belief that
information and counseling was essential for our Foreign Service
families.
We, along with the American Association of Foreign Service
Women, AFSA and a group representing the support staff are actively
examining the problem mentioned by the AFSA president concerning
Staff Corps perception that training and assignment benefits recently
promoted for family members adversely affect Staff employee's op-
portunities.
We do know that there is a regular cadre of qualified spouses who
take their skills and desire for employment from post to post around
the world. They serve with limited appointments and save the Govern-
ment transportation and housing costs. Others serve in part-time, in-
termittent and temporary-called PIT-positions to fill in during
periods of peak workloads. Such employees have met American stand-
ards of job qualification and should not be expected to accept local
standards of pay as described in section 333 (a) and 451(a) (1). I be-
lieve this latter section is one with which you will be discussing with
Mr. Read later this morning.
The women and men who have joined and supported the Women's
Action Organization have done so because of their commitment to
equal opportunity and their concern about being able to sustain a
happy, healthy family life despite the disruptions and difficulties of
our mobile occupation.
I appreciate the time you have given today to consider the conditions
of employment for women in the Department of State and our sister
agencies and of the concerns and resources of family members of the
Foreign Service. We hope you will see to it that equal employment
opportunity is more firmly captured in your bill.
I also request to submit for the record two letters which we have
sent to our employees, one of October 25, 1978, which describes the
affirmative action plan of the Department of State and our comments
on about six sections-I think there were 10 sections totally. The sec-
ond letter of May 1979 relates to the class action suit and explains what
the grievance is and what the remedy requested is and the progress.
Mr. FASCELL. Without objection, the two letters referred to will be
included in the record.
[The letters referred to follow:]
WOMEN'S ACTION ORGANIZATION,
Dial/ 1979.
Situation Report : Class Action suit on Behalf of Women FSOs.
DEAR WAO MEMBERS AND FRIENDS : The wheels of justice turn incredibly
slowly. We are still waiting for the hearing on a "class action" certification in
the U.S. District Court for D.C. for the two parallel suits (now consolidated)
charging discrimination by the Department on the basis of sex. It is now almost
three years since the original EEO complaint was filed.
Briefly, the cases charge that the effect of the Department's personnel system
is to discriminate against women FSO's in recruitment, selection, appointment.
assignment, evaluation, promotion, training, awards, selection-out, etc. This is
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based on the statistics, going back over ten years, that show that women as a
group, in comparison with men, are disadvantaged. For example, fewer women
than men are recruited for the FSO exam ; fewer are passed ; more are assigned
to the consular, personnel, budget and fiscal functions (where the number of
jobs above 0-3 is miniscule) ; and fewer are assigned to certain regions, certain
functions or supervisory positions generally. In the top ranks and in most
career-advancing jobs, they are woefully underrepresented. This demonstrates
clearly that there is a pattern of practices and policies that are unfair to women.
The suits are brought as a "class action" because the systemic unfairness falls
on women as a group. It is not based on individual complaints or specific per-
sonnel actions, although some can be given to illustrate the case. It does not af-
fect your right to file a grievance or complaint regarding a specific action that
happened to you personally.
The two suits attack the Department's personnel system rather than particular
individuals. In broad terms they ask that: (1) a court determination be made
that women FSO's have suffered from systemic discrimination; (2) the Depart-
ment be enjoined from continuing personnel policies and practices which discrim-
inate against women; (3) a court order be issued setting forth specific correc-
tive measures (affirmative actions) to eliminate and prevent discrimination;
and (4) where appropriate, women FSO's be granted remedial action, such as
retroactive promotions and accompanying back pay in those cases in which they
would have been entitled to such promotions if the system had not discriminated
against them.
In our most recent letter (October 25, 1978) we described the current status of
the Department's Affirmative Action Plan. While it contains some modest pro-
posals for the Civil Service, it fails to address the problems of discrimination in
Foreign Service assignments, counselling, promotions, training, etc., nor ,to make
meaningful recommendations that would permit women to compete equally with
men. Even if it were totally implemented, as is, it would not significantly help
women employees. Even so, the most important aspects of the Plan are being
opposed by AFSA. Obviously, we must continue to pursue the court case if any
effective change is to come about.
In the winter and spring of 1977/78, WAO urged the Department to consider
negotiating a settlement of the suit. At that time, although the Affirmative Ac-
tion Task Force recommendations were still merely statements of general goals,
without concrete substance, we felt that there was some possibility of progress
through negotiations. The Department was slow and vague in its response. The
plaintiffs in the suits continued their attempts to find a reasonable basis for
settling the suits through negotiations between July 1978 and January 1979.
Plaintiff's lawyers met with representatives of the Department and presented
specific proposals. However, they were never given a substantive response and
the Department used the negotiations as a basis for delaying the law suits in
the court. For these two reasons, the plaintiffs ended negotiations in January.
As you can see, since our last letter on the suits to you (December 1977)
there has been a lot of to-ings and fro-ings but little progress. Lawyers for the
plaintiffs submitted their motion for class certification in the two cases on
February 17, 1978. Briefings on the motion for both plaintiffs and defendant
were completed on July 7 and the case was then ready for oral argument.
On November 1 there was a status conference of the lawyers before Judge Smith.
At the request of the Department oral arguments were postponed until Janu-
ary 30, 1979, when the Department requested postponement for a further time
to submit additional documents. Plaintiffs filed an additional memorandum with
supporting documents on April 17, 1979, in response to the affidavits filed by
the Department in March.
In all this time, the court has not heard nor passed on the substance of
the suit. We are still fighting over technical details as to whether women FSO's
are to be considered as a group (the "class" certification). The reasons for the
delay are only incidentally the result of legal niceties. More important has been
the continuing lack of response from the Department-either as a deliberate
attempt to delay in. order to avoid the issues and discourage the plaintiffs, or
the result of lack of attention to the suit by Department officials, or both.
As of April 1979, legal costs to the plaintiffs were over $36,000 (recoverable
should the suit succeed) paid largely by Alison Palmer. WAOhas made very
modest financial contributions, has gathered and analyzed statistics, developed
concrete, illustrations of past discrimination, and prodded management. You
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can help, if you, will, to improve the career chances for yourself and your women
colleagues by contributing money or examples of your experience. The enclosed
form may be used for either.
We will keep you informed of the checkered progress of the suit.
Sincerely,
President..
MARGUERITE COOPER KING,
Vice President for State.
P.S.: It is again time to renew your membership in WAO. Unless you have paid
your dues since January 1, 1979, you should fill out the enclosed form and
return it with your check. Costs of stationery, printing xeroxing, etc., have shot
up and we would appreciate any additional contributions you can make. One
check will do, for the WAO legal fund for the suit, for membership, for con-
tribution to WAO. Please indicate on the enclosed forms how you would like
your check to be divided.
Enclosures.
WOMEN'S ACTION ORGANIZATION,
Situation Report : Department's Affirmative Action Plan. October 25, 1978.
DEAR WAO MEMBERS AND FRIENDS : We have been hard at work to put some
teeth into the recommendations of the Affirmative Action Task Force. You will
recall that the Secretary set up an executive-level Task Force in March, 1977,
which came up with some 90 recommendations : half related to increased efforts
at recruitment (largely for FSOs) and: half related to other aspects of employ-
ment. We concentrated our efforts on this latter half.
The recommendations, which received the Secretary's blessing in November
1977, were turned over to an Implementing Working Group under the direction
of M/EEO to work out a plan of action. The results, in by March/April 1978,
were a mixed bag (see the attached summary). There were some hopeful first
steps toward an upward mobility program for lower-level Civil Service em-
ployees, some good proposals for a more open, better advertised merit promotion
system. On the whole, however, the results were disappointing. We collectively
spent some 100 hours in meetings, gathering information, writing, editing, typing,
zeroxing and collating a serious and responsible critique which went to M/EEO
in June.
In July we met with Under Secretary for Management Benjamin Read, to
urge that certain high priority and non-controversial actions recommended by
the Implementing Working Group be taken at once and that other categories be
referred back to a panel for review and refinement. For example, we recom-
mended that the Secretary clarify what he meant by affirmative action (remov-
ing barriers to genuine equal competition and to commit the Department to seek
a proportionate number of women and minorities in all levels, pay plans, region
and functional specialties) ; to begin immediately with EEO training for BEX
examiners, tenure and commissioning boards, promotion panels and inspectors ;
to give expanded PER resources to upward mobility and merit promotion pro-
grams for the Civil Servicte.
At the same time we rejected other broad categories of recommendations as
failing to meet the minimum standards of an "affirmative action" program. "Af-
firmative action" is designed to identify and address the special problems that
women and minorities face that prevent them from competing equally on the basis
of merit. For example, sex role stereotyping which results in women being placed
as clerks and secretaries instead of communicators ; as consular officers instead
of political officers. But, the recommendations on career recounseling, for example,
apply across the board for all employees (focused on FSOs, natch!), with only
a passing reference to EEO. Affirmative action also implies attempts to increase
the proportion of women and minorities in all areas and levels where they are
underrepresented. This does not mean taking unqualified women, but making
special efforts to consider or search out qualified ones. In this sense, the recom-
mendations on assignments, promotions,' etc., lacked "affirmative action." Those on
recruitment and training were merely misdirected.
I regret to report that Deputy Assistant Secretary Burroughs (EEO) and
Under Secretary Read (Dl) gave us no reason to believe that the Department
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will move quickly on the non-controversial aspect nor recommit for review the
recommendations we opposed. AFSA President Lars Hydal conceded, at that July
meeting, that while isolated incidents of discrimination do exist in the Depart-
ment, he believes that women and minorities are .not systematically discriminated
against or disadvantaged by the system. From this and other encounters we are
convinced that AFSA will not support affirmative action on the grounds that its
meaning is unclear and is suspect as constituting "reverse discrimination".
So, friends, the way is dark and uphill every inch. And, we are in there
battling. The Secretary's speech on EEO at the WAO awards ceremony in Sep-
tember was positive : certainly better than the wishy-washy recommendations of
the Implementing Working Group. That was good. The Department's modest
G.S. upward mobility program seems to be moving ahead on schedule, although
we are uncertain of the impact on it of the freeze on hiring.
Attached is a brief summary of the recommendations of the Implementing
Working Group on an Affirmative Action Proposal for the Department. Should
you like a copy of our consolidated report to Ben Read, including our comments
and recommendations on the 90-odd proposals (70 pages), send us $2.00 for
copying expenses along with the form below.
We have indicated in the space below whether your dues are current. If not,
please see the separate form for renewal, with fee schedule, below.
Sincerely,
Your dues are/are not current.
SUMMARY AND COMMENTS ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROPOSALS OF THE SECRETARY'S
EXECUTIVE-LEVEL TASK FORCE AS REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE IMPLEMENTING
WORKING GROUP ?
? I. UPWARD MOBILITY
A. Civil Service.-A new upward mobility program coordinator is to begin
operation, by November 1978-February 1979, of a program for GS-7 and below
based on designated positions and candidate selection (Recommendation No. 50).
WAO oomment.-It is right to focus on this level: 51 percent of all women
and minority employees are in this group. Progress is slow, however, and the
outlines of the program are still vague. We want the program accelerated and
other programs for higher level GS employees instituted (see Training, Merit
Promotion).
B. Foreign Service.-For the Mustang program : will revise qualifications to
include credit for self-improvement, provide traveling panels for Mustang can,
didates (to become FSOs) (No. 51). Proposed a new program for support level
employees of all plans to move into new areas of specialty (No. 52).
WAO comment.-Entry qualifications for Mustang candidates are still too
high. The two programs should be amalgamated and developed into one which
permits employees to acquire new specialties and move up, within support level
as well as into the officer level.
II. ASSIGNMENTS (F.S.) /MERIT PROMOTION (0.S.)
A. Foreign Service-The Task Force had recommended that the Department
"encourage consideration of employees in EEO categories for all vacancies, giv-
ing them favorable consideration when deemed competitive" (No. 66). The Im-
plementing Working Group changed this (and other similar recommendations) to
"assure that EEO category personnel are equitably considered.. ."
WAO comment.-The specific implementing steps recommended failed to ad-
dress the problem of sex-stereotyping in jobs. Additionally, the Working Group
failed to bite the bullet and recommend that the underrepresentation of women
and minorities in certain areas be a favorable factor in choosing between qualified
candidates. EEO goals should, we feel, be given the same kind of consideration
now given to other non-performance related "needs of the Service," e.g., the
requirement of officers to spend a certain proportion of their careers in Washing-
ton and oversas, the development of area and language expertise. WAO also
recommended that FSRs and FSRUs should he considered for FS designated
Positions and used before permitting outside hire.
B. Civil Service.-Instructions to Merit Promotion panels should stress affirma-
tive action ... (No. 71) ; make certain, where possible, that lists of best qualified
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MARGUERITE COOPER KING,
Vice President for State.
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candidates . include persons in EEO categories . . . ; and greater publicity
should be given to the Merit Promotion system, how it works and vacancy
notices; develop individualized career counseling for the Civil Service (No. 75).
WAO comment.-Improvements are required so that G.S.-7s and above, not
covered by the G.S. upward mobility program, are given a chance to advance
commensurate with their skills and potential. The Implementing Working Group
recommendations were relevant and he:pful. Additionally, position requirements
should be written in such a way as to permit the widest possible competition and
FSI or off-site training provided where it would qualify an employee for a
vacancy.
III. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION (U.S. AND F.S.)/PROMOTION (F.S.)
A. Performance Evaluation.-All evaluation reports should comment on con-
tributions to EEO (No. 76), record EEO training (No. 77) and give full rather
than cursory evaluatoins for all employees in "dead-end" positions (No. 78).
Ensure that EEO-category employees are given equal consideration in assessing
potential for future assignments (No. ? 79). The Working Group added to the
Task Force recommendations by proposing that consistent guidance be given
selection boards and the Commissioning and Tenure Board (No. 79A).
WAO comment.-We support these proposals. They correctly identified the
problems of underutilization of low expectation related to sex-role bias as well
as the unreasonable criteria being applied to Mustang and lateral entrant
candidates.
B. Promotion (F.S.: see II.B above for G.S.).-Revise F.S. precepts to ensure
that they stress affirmative action (No. 70) appoint women and minorities to
selection boards (No. 73).
WAO comment.-Panel precepts should charge members with identifying and
discounting bias when it appears in reports by supervisors and inspectors. We also
believe that it is fair to ask panel members, when having to choose the rank order
among equally qualified employees, to give particular consideration to women and
minority employees who have previously been disadvantaged because of bias un-
related to their job performance.
IV. TRAINING AND COUNSELING (G.S.-F.S.)
A. Training.-Implement comprehensive programs of training for G.S. em-
ployees (No. 53), supervisors should encourage subordinates to take appropriate
short-term training (No. 54). Improve training opportunities such as language,
area, administrative, etc., for "certain groups such as secretaries and com-
municators and long term training for consular officers."
WAO comment.-These are important advances in principle for G.S. employees.
They need to be monitored to ensure that they are adequately made a part of
counseling and merit promotion programs. The recommendations for language
and area training misses the boat re: women's special concerns. These are
the failure : to view young women as serious professionals ("they will soon
get married and leave"); to provide adequate or career advancing administra-
tive and consular officers ; or to recognize the leadership potential of women
calling for long-term or senior training.
B. Counseling.-Proposed that counselors without professional training in
counseling be given that training; counselors should spend more time on coun-
seling rather than placement (No. 8). A program should be designed to identify
and help "troubled" employees (No. 60).
Comment.-The recommendations have no particular EEO focus nor do they
propose "affirmative action." They fail to address the special problems of women
and minorities through stereotyping and low expectation. Biased advice by coun-
selors only reinforces their disadvantages by perpetuating their low self-esteem.
Nor did they recommend an improvement in the ratio of counselors to employees
which are grossly inadequate for all except junior and mid-level FSOs.
V. OTHERS
Lack of time and resources prevented WAO from commenting on other Work-
ing Group proposals covering orientation, position descriptions, and EEO train-
ing. We have not included here our critiques of proposals on recruitment, image
and publicity, and selection and hiring (which focused on FSOs).
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Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Mrs. King, for a very damaging
piece of testimony.
Let me see if I understand. Other than statutory changes which you
suggested with respect to equal opportunity language and the reserva-
tion with respect to labor/management, there are no other specific leg-
islative matters that you are concerned with?
Mrs. KING. The reason why we have not come out on specific aspects
is because women are found in all functions and you often have a
conflict of interest. There will be officers and secretaries in the Foreign
Service and civil service whom we represent. We were unable there-
fore as an organization to comment on other substantive parts of the
law.
We merely ask that it be equally enforced.
Mr. FASCELL. That the law be equally applicable? I have never heard
anybody else say anything otherwise. If they have, they do not know
what they are talking about.
This intrigues me. Is there some relationship between this organiza-
tion and other organizations? Just exactly what are you talking about?
Why can you not comment on whatever you want to comment on?
Mrs. KING. We could, but if you know anything about the women's
movement, about the only thing which unites them is they do not
want to be discriminated against.
Mr. FASCELL. That sounds like men. What does that have to do with
it?
Mrs. KING. That is the reason why as long as we are here represent-
ing the Women's Action Organization, that is the only part that is
appropriate for me to address.
Mr. FASCELL. Are you in the Foreign Service?
Mrs. KING. I entered the Foreign Service through the written ex-
ar:iination in 1956.
Mr. FASCELL. I was just curious about the reservation you placed
upon yourself as an individual. I do not understand but it is all right
with me.
Mrs. KING. I am representing my organization. If you would like
my personal views, I would be glad to give them to you. If you want
the views of my organization, I think it is proper for us to stick to
that.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's talk about this organization. Tell me about it so
I will understand exactly whose view we have.
Mrs. KING. We represent Foreign Service and civil service.
Mr. FASCELL. All Government employees?
Mrs. KING. In State, AID, and USICA.
Mr. FASCELL. Men and women?
Mrs. KING. Men and women and their spouses. That is officers and
secretaries.
Mr. FASCELL. No one outside the agencies?
Mrs. KING. No, unless they are retired. Only a few continue to be
interested.
Mr. FASCELL. Except for the fact that you are a separate organiza-
tion, what is your relation to AFSA?
Mrs. KING. We formed in 1970 as did the blacks and hispanics and
the Asian Americans. Those are the minority groups I know about and
there may be others.
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Mr. FASCELL. You all have separate organizations?
Mrs. KING. Yes. We organized on behalf of equal opportunity for
women in about 1970 and you will be speaking to the Thursday lunch-
eon group which represents the blacks on the 31st.
One of the reasons why we did so' was because very frankly we were
not being adequately represented by the American Foreign Service As-
sociation. I do not know how representative that organization is of cur-
rent employees. I do not know how many of its members are retired
members.
Mr. FASCELL. Is that a good question to ask without asking yourself
the same question?
Mrs. KING. I can tell you. We have three retired members.
Mr. FASCELL. I am talking about representatives of the community,
whatever that community happens to be. I do not know that it is valid
but it certainly is the guts of the case as far as women are concerned
in the Service. If you are going to apply it to the organization as they
come out of that Service, I do not know where you stop.
I guess the assumption is that not only is AFSA nonrepresentative
in the agency sense as an agent, but nonrepresentative in its character
and nonrepresentative in its makeup. I gather that is the assumption.
I do not know whether that is a fact or not. It is certainly the assump-
tion I am left with because you have so many other organizations who
want to go out and have an identification.
Mrs. KING. Certainly there has been a lack of response by AFSA
and AFSA has not been responsive to special concerns.
Mr. FASCELL. I was citing from the response, the fact that they do
not go in the right direction or the buttons are not pushed right. I was
thinking strictly about the makeup of the organization as not being
representative of the community which it is supposed to represent. If
there are not enough women in there then it is impossible for that
group to be representative any more than it is for your group to be
representative since there are not enough women in the group to start
with. That is the only point I was making.
I do not ignore the politics of the situation in terms of the need for
identity.
Mrs. KING. I am a member of AFSA and many people within my
organization are. I have two members here. One is from AID and one
is from USICA. About our representativeness, we are in the midst
of our annual membership campaign so I cannot tell you how many
members we have because we are in the midst.
Mr. FASCELL. As far as I am concerned, it is not even relevant any
more than the makeup of AFSA is relevant but if you think it is
relevant, it becomes important.
Mrs. KING. If the people who vote, if half of their members are
retired or one-third of their members are retired and they are operat-
ing on ideas that were current and in vogue 30 years ago, that is not
going to help us today.
Mr. FASCELL. The 18th century. It is not going to help you. It is
the old story of political power. Around here as an example, you can
do anything if you have the votes. If you do not have the votes you
are not going to do anything. You can be eloquent and you can be
intelligent.
Mrs. KING. You can even be right.
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Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. I can understand that since this side of the table seems
to have a monopoly on rightness and not votes.
Mr. FASCELL. This side of the table goes in both directions.
Mr. LEACH. Let me comment briefly on the cone system. I think
anyone who has ever been associated with the Foreign Service has
very, very strong opinions. I happen to be convinced that it is damag-
ing at the entrance level. So many people feel they have a slightly
better chance if they choose a consular or administrative cone; and the
Service, when they get locked into the cone concept, wants to choose
a given percentage in that direction. This applies particularly to
women who may not have as much alleged political background, and
particularly the minorities, so you get locked in from the start.
Oddly enough, in politics in America, anyone who has ever run
for an elected office knows women do all the work and are all the
smart politicians.
I think it is damaging to promotions in a reverse discriminatory
way in the junior ranks and the opposite for the senior ranks. Having
once reached the austere rank of an FSO-5 as a political officer, I was
told by one promotion board that I would have an immediate promo-
tion if I switched to economics and a delayed one for politics. I think
that is absolutely wrong.
As everyone knows toward the end of the spectrum, political officers
get most of the top promotions. There is no reason to put that slant in
the system.
I think the cone system is devastating to the psychology of officers.
What you have in the Foreign Service is a class system to begin with
and this makes a caste system within a class system. That is an
outrage.
I also think it is damaging to training because, as most people who
have served overseas know, some of the best initial training is at the
consular level or possibly the administrative level. You get locked
into a political cone and you are strapped. There is no reason that the
Foreign Service should not be far more flexible.
I would strongly advise the State Department to dispense with the
cone system virtually in its entirety. As I said somewhat facetiously,
but I think it is correct, at the last meeting of this hearing, cones
should be used by Good Humor men but not Secretaries of State.
With that as a prolog, could you comment why in your judgment
there seems to be a decreasing number of women at the top levels
although an increasing number at the bottom?
Mrs. KING. It is the sociological phenomenon as well as historical
phenomenon that women in American society entered the work force
in positions to which they were previously kept out during the Second
World War and immediately after the Second World War. Those
women are now approaching involuntary retirement age.
I have attempted to get the statistics on the ages of the women in
classes I. IT, and III. More than half of them look like they are going
to be retired within the next couple of years.
That is the sociological reason.
Mr. LEACH. If I could interrupt you for a second, we have a vote
and we will recess briefly. The chairman is back.
Mr. FASCELL. We will be back in a few minutes.
The subcommittees recessed for a vote on the floor.]
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Mr. FASCELL. We will continue.
Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Do you believe the Foreign Service entrance exam itself discrimi-
nates against women?
Mrs. KING. We know statistically it does. We know it screens out
women more rapidly than men. I have some figures with regard to
the number of people who actually apply to take the exam, who
actually take the exam, who pass the written exam, who take the oral
and pass the oral. The statistical difference is 5 to 10 percent.
The worst case recently was in 1975 when 14 percent of all men who
took it passed and 4 percent of all women who took it passed it.
We are not really quite certain why that is so. That is the business
of the people who make up the examination to find out why it is so.
Recently the Department has changed its system of the oral exami-
nation. Instead of having three, largely men, although increasingly
women, go out on these panels, drilling you for an hour, you now have
an all-day examination. I think there are six applicants in each group
being examined. I do not know whether there are three or six examin-
ers. They do an in-basket test, a written test, and a little oral. They
put them through some work simulation games.
Although that only began in January, I am told women are doing
much better on that.
The problem with the old oral examination is the problem we face
in assignments and promotions. It is what women call the problem
of invisibility. If I have a qualification and you do not ask me about
it, then I never have a chance to let you know. If you already presume
that because I am a woman and marriageable, that I will get married
and leave and the Department is going to lose all the money it has
invested in my training, then you are already in a mind set that dis-
courages you from bringing in women.
We definitely do believe that there are problems in recruitment, to
make certain that with the appropriate training women are encouraged
to take the test as well as especially the written examination. We want
a much more thorough review of that to identify what is in the exam-
ination. We know there is a bias. We know statistically there is a bias.
We do not know exactly what it is.
I remember one question which at the time I scratched my head and
could not figure out why it was relevant. Why is it relevant to know
the name of the last holy Roman Emperor? What does that have to say
about your ability to issue visas and to mediate between quarreling
ship captains and seamen in Bombay? I do not know.
Mr. BUCIIANAN. I am pleased to hear your comment on the change
on the oral examination. There has been an impression that has been
misinformed. There has been the presumption that a woman would
be a consular rather than a political or economic officer and this has
had some impact on the nature of that examination and the rating of
the person.
Mrs. KING. We are also very concerned about the way women get
appointed to cones because the qualifications that they are looking for
which place you in a political cone or economic cone, consular cone or
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265
administrative cone, again, we do not know how relevant that is to
what may be reasonably expected of you througl out your lifetime
career.
One of the reasons why we have asked for a representative service in
all grades and all functions in all regions is because you do not need to
recruit more women for the consular corp. Thirty percent of all women
officers are consular officers. You do not need to recruit more women
in the typing pools. Women are already there. Only 4 percent of all
women officers are in the political cone.
Mr. BUCHANAN. How would you assess the recent action by the
Department to expand on a worldwide basis the former pilot program
of Foreign Service spouses' employment?
Mrs. KING. I am not quite certain I understand.
Mr. BUCHANAN. This committee had insisted that Foreign Service
spouses be considered for employment, primarily thinking in terms of
replacement of foreign nationals, and that there be training. State had
instituted the program on a pilot project basis which had accom-
plished approximately nothing.
Quite recently they expanded that worldwide.
Mrs. KING. In Japan, the local salaries just may exceed the Ameri-
can salaries. In India and Pakistan in which I have spent a consider-
able amount of my career, it would give them one-tenth of the salary
of an American.
I think you have to look at what work is being done. If the spouse
has gone through the Civil Service Commission or through the De-
partment of State exams, did their typing test, their shorthand and
then qualified as a Foreign Service reserve secretary, if you ask her to
go to Indonesia and pay her one-third of an American salary, I do
not think she is is going to be very happy about that. However, there
may be some positions in which she has no skills that are any different
from a local employee and the same salary may be just.
I do think you have to be flexible.
Mr. BUCHANAN. We provided for part time employment also. Our
intent in the subcommittee was not to put down women but to provide
employment opportunities for women who had no employment and
were all spouses. There are Foreign Service spouses around the world
who are totally unemployed and who have talents and resources which
may be of a value to our Government. They have no employment oppor-
tunity because they are spouses of American Foreign Service officers.
Our hope had been some of these talents and resources might be used
by our Government.
Mrs. KING. There are lots of ways. There was a very good memoran-
dum that came out of USICA. It was when I was in Bombay. It had
to be in the late 1960's. It said that women should be considered for
work that is part-time, full-time temporary, contractual, et cetera. You
were to use your imagination. If you have an exhibition coming in
and you are going to be terribly busy, rather than bringing people out
from Washington to beef up the mission, examine what resources you
have at the post. There are going to be certain situations in which it
is most efficient and most just to use spouses who are at the post.
There will be other situations in which the Service will have a con-
tinuing need for persons with certain kinds of skills-functional or
regional-so it should develop a cadre of career employees with those
skills and expertise.
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266
One of my problems with the act is there is a lot of detail in here
that I just think is dangerous to put in an act because it limits your
flexibility and the world certainly changes. The Foreign Service has
changed fantastically since I entered 23 years ago.
We are not talking about a bill that is only going to be good for
5 years. It is going to be around for 30 years. I would think in this
case what you perhaps need to do is to state what your objective is
and to authorize the Secretary of State to issue the appropriate
regulations rather than to attempt to define the program and give
the numbers and all of the rest.
At least this Secretary of State, I have faith, would really attempt
to do that and in a way that would be fair for both employees and
spouses.
Mr. BUCHANAN. The basic thrust of your testimony is certainly some-
thing I identify with in providing, equal opportunity for women and
persons regardless of sex in the Foreign Service and throughout the
Federal Establishment and is something long past due.
I hate to read these statistics, Mr. Chairman. I keep hearing these
reassuring things from various parties and then I look at the statistics.
Mr. FASOE L. You do not expect the Department of State to be any
better than any other agency, do you ?
Mr. BUCHANAN. I would expect it to be less good probably, Mr.
Chairman. I am very discouraged at the whole record.
Mr. FASCELL. Look at the University of Alabama.
Mr. BUCHANAN. You cannot hit me, Mr. Chairman, because I would
Mrs. KING. One of the reasons why I think USICA and even the
Department of State may be having a little difficulty with getting
women into the Foreign Service is the same woman who is graduating
from college and even going through law school has a lot of choices
in law firms and businesses and media that they did not have before.
I do not know that the Foreign Service can offer a career as at-
tractive as others now available in our society as a whole.
Mr. BUCHANAN. In society as a whole the Federal Government is the
physician who is actively engaged in trying to heal what ails the rest of
society. The physician has failed to heal himself at all in my judg-
ment. That may be prejudice but I feel very strongly about the Federal
Establishment.
I hope we can do better.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Buchanan, I am delighted you found Mrs. King
militant enough for you.
Mr. BUCHANAN. He is giving me a hard time. I told him in private
we finally had a witness that was militant enough to suit me.
Mr. FASCELL. I thought it ought to be on the record.
Mrs. KING. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. There are a lot of pluses
and minuses. I am here to talk about the minuses.
I did make some changes in my prepared testimony as I went along.
There have been some efforts and there has been some progress. I
think the real problem is the lack of an affirmative action program in
the Department of State that deals with equal employment oppor-
tunities.
Mr. FASCELL. The most important thing about that as far as I am
concerned, as you have stated on the record, is that this Secretary of
say "Amen."
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State and those around him are very much committed. They certainly
have impressed me that way.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I believe that is true.
Mr. FASCELL. The only reason we are even fooling with this bill is
because Secretary Vance made a commitment to this subcommittee
that the administration would get behind it and make all the neces-
sary internal changes that are going to be required to deal with af-
firmative action and equal employment opportunities and all the other
things that need to be done.
Mrs. KING. You should draw this to the attention of those who draft
your revisions to this bill. AFSA, AFGE and others have claimed
that the amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1963 by title VII and
the Executive order-extending to Federal agencies the prohibition
against discrimination-does not apply to the Foreign Service. As I
understand it, the reason for this is that the Civil Service Commission
was to implement these provisions and there are those who claim that
it does not cover the Foreign Service. They also claim that the Execu-
tive order on affirmative action does not apply to us.
Mr. FASCELL. We appreciate the emphasis. We got the point the
first time. I was not aware of that position. I cannot imagine there is
any legal base for it. That is my immediate reaction without looking at
the statutes. That is what I would call beer conversation.
Jim?
Mr. LEACH. I am not sure beer would be an appropriate analogy for
the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. You are trying to promote that old myth that every-
body drinks martinis straight up.
Mrs. KING. Not in the tropics, gin and tonic.
Mr. LEACH. I would like to test your militancy. Would you favor
a constitutional amendment calling for busing between cones? John
Buchanan has been very interested in this issue. He has been on both
sides. [Laughter.]
Mrs. KING. I think we may have gotten one. We are examining it.
It is quite obvious if you stack all the women officers when they come
in under the consular cones and the budget and fiscal and personnel
functions in the administrative cone, that things are not going to
change.
AFSA was for freezing cones the way they were. My understanding
of the Department's position-a much better witness would be the
gentleman sitting to my right-is that there is an opportunity to change
your formal skill code-the code relates to the specific function within
the cone-over several years if you can get successive assignments in
a code different f.om your present code. For example, say you are a
secretary and you are interested in doing budget and fiscal work
which will permit you to rise to grade levels not available for secre-
taries. You will go to the personnel people and tell them about uni-
versity or other training you have in accounting or budget work and
your interest in getting an assignment in a budget and fiscal position.
If you succeed, that job is probably for 2 years. Then you try to get
your next assignment in the same budget and fiscal code. At that point,
as I understand it, you are eligible to be considered to have your skill
code changed from that of a secretary. There is a review process in
this : It will depend upon the need for budget and fiscal personnel and
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your qualifications. But, this new procedure unlocks -the bars at the
gate wiiich now prevents change.
Mr. LEACH. I would like to stress that you get locked into a system
when you start to accept people initially in one cone or another and
you advertise for that cone. I think any of us that have ever been
associated with the Foreign Service are truly impressed with the coin-
petition to get in but not infrequently are appalled by those that are
finally selected. There is an irony beyond belief.
As a graduate student, I looked at my friends who took the exam.
It always struck me that the exact people that I would have taken did
not get accepted and those that I would not, did. I think part of the
problem really is this tonal structure. It also has the disadvantage
of making people think they will have an easier chance if they choose a
less attractive cone. It also has the disadvantage of possibly reducing
the chances of those that might have chosen a more competitive cone.
I really think it. should be examined.
That has nothing to do with the fact that quite obviously within
State one develops specialties. One develops regional specialties. One
develops trade specialties. People concentrate and that is very reason-
able but they do not necessarily have to specialize forever.
One of the most interesting parts of your testimony related to the
fact of under utilization; that is, 43 percent of women were serving in
positions one grade below what they were qualified for. It has always
struck me that is a problem in State not just of women but maybe of
everybody, in the sense State is loaded with enormously qualified peo-
ple who spend a good part of their career in underutilized positions.
Would you say that this 43 percent is about average compared to
everyone in State or is it specifically negative for women?
Mrs. KING. We did that study for the Interdependence Subcommit-
tee of the President's Commission on the International Women's Year.
We recommended-and the Commission agreed-that the President
direct the Secretary of State, the Administrator of AID, and the Di-
rector of USICA to make a comparative analysis for men and women
of Foreign Service ranks and positions held. That analysis was never
done. We have asked the Department for it on two different occasions.
The one answer did not tell us anything because they have lumped
together the figures for the various Foreign Service categories-FSO's,
FSR's, and FSRU's. Any analysis of personal rank versus position
grade has to separate occupational functions and grades, for example,
are women administrative officers of grade 3 doing as well as their
male peers? Otherwise, the comparison is lost, the percentages are
skewed when you compare lower level occupations like nurse and sec-
retary in which women are concentrated with higher level occupations
like doctor and political negotiator in which men are concentrated.
But, we have been unable to get the Department to be responsive on
that issue.
Mr. LEACH. In general, do you support the principle of making a
provision for the possibility of double promotions and do you think
that might be beneficial to minorities and women?
Mrs. KING. Under the present promotional system, it would be
devastating for women and minorities.
Mr. LEACH. Why?
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Mrs. KING. Because the people in the promotion panel are reading
efficiency reports that have been written by supervisors-predomi-
nantly men-who do not see the actual qualifications and potential of
their women subordinates. They do not see women as leaders.
Mr. LEACH. That.is another issue.
Mrs. KING. If you are saying there should be a system for remedial
promotion, yes, of course.
Mr. LEACH. I didn't have in mind the remedial issue. Rather, the pos-
sibility in a select number of cases for extraordinary merit to be the
basis of a double promotion.
Mr. FASCELL. That exists, does it not?
Mrs. KING. The problem is not that there is a lack of women of
extraordinary merit but that their merit goes unreported. Right now
there is some opportunity for accelerated promotion. But, preference
is given-in my grade for example-to those who have been in grade
for 5 years. I do not know what the periods are for preference in pro-
motion in other grades. At the present time, if you really are a super-
star with outstanding efficiency reports but you have only been in
grade 1 or 2 years, you can still be promoted but your chances are
greatly reduced. Identification of the "superstars" is one of the func-
tions of the promotion panel.
I tend to think that unless you are really talking about remedying
past errors of great substance you should not have double promotions.
So long as bias persists and is reflected in efficiency reports, women
and minorities would not benefit from double promotions. Promotion
panels put on the "fast track" people who have done well in demand-
ing jobs working under influential people. If women are not given
demanding jobs then they never have a chance to show what they
can do.
The promotional system is so bound in with your assignment system
that the two are inseparable. And, it is the same psychological bar-
riers and mind set in both that women face. Bias is still formidable
and women do not have a chance.
If I had a chance to say where affirmative action would take place
in the Department of State after entry, I would say assignments.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Could that not be another piece of the puzzle?
Since the problem is the dearth of women in the upper levels, it would
seem to me if you corrected these other things, a double promotion
might be one of the pieces to help change it.
Mrs. KING. There was a proposal in the midsixties by the Special
Assistant to the Under Secretary, then Deputy Under Secretary for
Management. That proposal was a very interesting one. What she said
was :
We lack women in the senior grades. We will go through and select some in
the middle grades that look like they are superior but have not had a chance
to show what they could do. Let us sit down and figure out what kind of assign-
ments they would need in order to become ambassadors within 5 years or 10
years.
I was one of the people who was selected for that. I had to sit down
and try to figure out as a practical. matter what I would have to learn
in 5 years to be an ambassador in 10 years. You do not want to put
a woman into a position or anybody into a position in which they are
going to fall flat on their face.
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That was the program. Do you know what happened to that pro-
gram in my case? The first assignment proposed for me was to a. class
3 position-a supervisory one-in a country and function in which I
had perviously served. There was such a vacancy in 1971 but the as-
signment officials wouldn't make the assignment. His point of view
was "why should she be given that opportunity? I am a grade 3 officer.
Why should she have it and not me?" So, despite the support in prin-
ciple to the program of accelerated assignments, for selected middle-
grade women by the Deputy Under Secretary for Management, to the
best of my knowledge, the program never got off the ground.
In my view, that was a very imaginative program. It did not pro-
mote you out of turn but put you in a good position to earn an acceler-
ated promotion. Obviously, if you are working at a grade one level
higher than your personal rank and doing a good job of it the pro-
motion boards will take that into consideration. That may be a better
plan than double promotion.
Mr. FASCELL. I do not know about the dynamics of any .organization
more than two which I am running. I think any system you build is
going to be subject to human dynamics. Even guys outside the Depart-
ment run the Department or try to. I can think of one right now mak-
ing more money than he deserves but his friends were selected and
they are in the right places.
I am not saying anybody is disloyal. It is a fact of life.
If there were no women on the selection board, how do you get
selected?
Mrs. KING. It is not just any women on the selection board. It has to
be a woman who understands women's positions and the nature of
the bias. Sometimes the issue is very difficult to identify as relating to
discrimination on the basis of sex.
If you have been given a good position and you walk into your new
office and you are seen as a powder puff, you are never asked to do any-
thing. You are never told what happens in the country team meetings.
You are never permitted to read the cables which is your work's life-
blood. You do not know what is happening. Your advice is never
asked.
That is so subtle and it is very difficult to get around.
Mr. FASCELL. It forces you into the other stereotype, the obnoxious
woman.
Mrs. KING. Yes. If a man is aggressive, he is considered masterful.
Mr. FASCELL. If a woman fights for her rights, right away they say
she is a troublemaker.
Mrs. KING. It is difficult to put women on the selection boards es-
pecially in the higher grades because there are so few higher ranking
women. We have suggested that they take recent retirees, women who
have recently retired who attain high rank and put them on as public
members if needed in order to beef up the promotion system.
There are a lot of very creative ideas like that which we have sug-
gested in the past. Our problem with the affirmative action program
was that the career employees who set out to implement the recom-
mendations did not know what the problem was. Therefore, their solu-
tions were irrelevant where they even addressed the EEO. I regret to
say that in assignments and career counseling and training, they did
not even address EEO.
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Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Mrs. King.
Mrs. KING. Thank you very much for letting me come.
Mr. FASCELL. I am almost afraid to say "gentlemen." According to
my book and the record, we finished our section-by-section examination
on page 28 last time and we. start with section 442, "Within Class
Salary Increases."
Just point out the substantive differences if any.
Mr. READ. We are ready to proceed in that way, Mr. Chairman. We
would also appreciate the opportunity to address the WAO legisla-
tive proposal and we could address it on paper or whatever way you
wish.
Mr. FASCELL. If you would like to comment on it, that would be fine.
STATEMENT OF HON. BEN H. READ, UNDER SECRETARY FOR
MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. READ. In the most general vein as the Department's equal op-
portunity officer, I welcome and agree with the thrust of Mrs. King's
remarks. There is no question that there is a catchup of enormous
proportions. As the Secretary made clear, we feel we have made some
progress and Mrs. King was good enough to state that also.
We are very mindful of the distance to go. The techniques and ways
of doing so are described in the 140 questions and answers which we
have filed in response to the committee's request. They are very detailed
responses on the exam process and on the changes which were made to
attempt to get at these factors.
On the legislative proposals, I do not recall the AFSA testimony
as Mrs. King does, although I was not here and I simply read the
A.FSA prepared testimony in advance. We want there to be no am-
biguity about the full applicability of equal opportunity provisions
of law to the Department.
As you know the words "merit principles" appear repeatedly
throughout the bill and are fully applicable to the Department. The
No. 2 principle is equal opportunity.
Mr. MICHEL. If I may, Mr. Chairman, there are two points. First,
it. is the legal position of the Department of State that title VII of
the Civil Rights Act applies to the Foreign Service and to the Depart-
ment of State.
Mr. FASCELL. We will just say that and that is the end of it.
Mr. MICHEL. The merit principles referred to in this bill are defined
in the bill as the merit system principles set out in the Civil Service
Reform Act. They apply anyway, but we wanted to give that emphasis
in this legislation.
Mr. FASCELL. I think probably for legislative esthetics a restate-
ment of the applicability of title VII is the easiest way to handle it
rather than interspersing it all through the bill in the equal employ-
ment language.
Mr. MICHEL. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is not referred to in
the bill. It is referred to in the bill as merit principles.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that. I am talking about Mrs. King's
testimony and going back to the applicability of title VII of the Civil
Rights Act.
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Mr. MICHEL. We do not need to refer to title VII of the Civil Rights
Act. I think everyone agrees it does apply.
Mr. READ. It is title I of the Civil Service Reform Act which has
these important provisions.
Mr. MICHEL. The first of the merit principles is that recruitment
and selection and advancement should be determined on the basis of
knowledge and skills in open competition which assures that all receive
equal opportunity.
The second of the merit principles is all employees should receive
fair and equitable treatment without regard to political affiliation,
race, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or handicapping
conditions.
We think these principles specifically include in the concept of merit
the notion of.equal opportunity and we are concerned that by saying
"merit and equal opportunity" we will suggest they are two different
things. In the Civil Service Reform Act, one is a part of the other.
Mr. FASCELL. That occurred to me also. I think we could handle
that in language in the report with respect to the reference to title I
of the Civil Service Act and the definition of merit principles in-
cluding equal opportunity rather than trying to amend the definition
in this act which might be confusing.
We will have to think about that but that is my immediate reaction
to it although I do not know how the others feel about it. That is some-
thing we can examine as we go along.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 442 of the bill, "Within Class Salary In-
creases," is a generalization and a simplication. The existing law has
two provisions for within class salary increases, one for officers and
reserve officers and the other for the Staff Corps. The one for the officers
and reserve officers is quite detailed. It says that the "within grade"
comes every July if you have been in class for 9 months and have not
had an equivalent increase in pay. It defines an equivalent increase
in pay in some detail, and includes in the definition any other in-
creases the Secretary may designate by regulation.
We have substituted for this unnecessary verbiage a formula that
says members of Foreign Service will get periodic within class in-
creases unless the selection board decides performance falls below
the standards of the class.
The notion of additional step increases is in existing law and is
carried forward in subsection (b). We think the possible denial of
a within class increase and possible double within class increase would
work better for the Foreign Service than the "merit pay" concept of
the Civil Service Reform Act.
We have had a lot of discussions with employee representatives and
others and the civil service approach seems to present some special
problems with implementation in a worldwide, highly dispersed For-
ei an Service.
Mr. FASCELL. Any questions on this section?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have some questions.
Are you going to set any target numbers for how many people in
a class are going to get double step increases?
Mr. READ. We thought it would be unwise to do so certainly in the
law, Mrs. Schroeder, because it is first and foremost the function of
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the selection boards under our system which are independent entities
and not subject to outside influence.
Mrs. Sel-IROEDER. In other words, could everyone get it? Does this
have any merit?
Mr. READ. Obviously it will be "x" percentage at the top only who
qualify and "x" percentage below who are denied such increases. I
think the determination has to be left up to the boards as to who is
deserving to be in those categories as defined. The precepts will be
worked out with great care.
It will also be a matter of available money because it may have to
be a zero net sum.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Where will that money come from?
Mr. READ. As I say, it may have to be a zero sum in terms of who
gets double increases and who have increases withheld. I want to
emphasize that this will not affect the annual cost of living compa-
rability increases which go to all employees whose pay is not capped.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We had a gentleman testify yesterday about how
everybody wrote up wonderful performance ratings for everybody
else. The real question is how do you prevent that from happening.
You say you have to prevent rating inflation because for everyone
who goes up you are going to have someone who does not get a raise
to keep the money.
Mr. READ. Unless there is additional funding in the authorization-
appropriation process.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 451, "Local Compensation Plans," is
unchanged from existing law except for a parenthetical reference at
the top of page 29 to participation in local social security plans. This
participation in local social security plans with respect to foreign
national employees is authorized by current law. The parenthetical
reference here is to emphasize that type of employee benefit as a pre-
ferred method of compensation for the foreign nationals.
Mr. FASCELL. What about the issue raised by Mrs. King with respect
to spouses and other family members?
Mr. MICHEL. This section provides affirmative authority for the
Secretary to pay Americans who are family members at local rates.
That is a preservation of existing authority that was enacted last
year.
The particular application of that will have to be very carefully
implemented because of the problems of some places where local
employees make more than Americans and some places where they
make far less and you have to look at the particular job.
We thought for purposes of this bill, and given the fact that the
pilot program has not given us a great deal of experience to make
judgments, that it was better to leave that flexibility in the law than
take it out. What we have in the bill, is the family members may be
paid at American rates or at the foreign national rates. The bill does
not seek to determine which will be used.
We may find this does not work. We would not like to be deprived
of the flexible authority to try to work this out in a way that will
maximize employment opportunities.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Go ahead.
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Mr. MICHEL. Section 452, "Salaries of Consular Agents," is some-
what more flexible than the present law, which contemplates classes
of consular agents. The Secretary then decides whether a particular
consular agent has enough work to do and is in a locality that warrants
one class or another. This bill provides for the Secretary to decide
more on an individual basis in a particular case what the consular
agent's workload is, taking into account the salary rates paid in the
particular locality, and to set the consular agent's salary on an indi-
vidual basis.
Mr. FASCELL. Is "consular agent" defined?
Mr. MICHEL. "Consular agent" is listed as one of the categories of
Foreign Service personnel. The consular agent is an American or a
foreign national who is a resident at a place where there is some need
for consular services but not enough to establish a regular consular
post and assign a consul or consul general with a staff of people serv-
ing on a rotational basis.
Mr. FASCELL. That is a secretarial appointment under section 303.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir. It is generally a part-time job held by a
businessman.
Mr. FASCELL. Defined in section 103.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Subsection 103(7).
Any questions on section 452?
1N6 response.]
Mr. FASCELL. Section 453.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 453, "Compensation for Imprisoned Foreign
National Employees" in effect extends the Missing Persons Act to
foreign national employees who are imprisoned abroad as a result of
their employment by the United States. This is no change from the
existing law. The present law incorporates this authority within sec-
tion 444 of the 1946 act on local compensation plans. It is really not
a compensation plan. It is an incidental, separate feature of employ-
ment for foreign nationals and we broke it out and made it a separate
section.
Section 461, "Temporary Service as Principal Officer," combines
two sections in the 1946 act which dealt separately with such tempo-
rary service as head of the diplomatic mission or as head of the con-
sular post. The substance of the two sections of existing law is the
same. It seemed unnecessary to preserve that distinction so we simply
combined and generalized the language. This authorizes the Secretary
to determine the amount of additional pay not to exceed the pay of
the usual principal officer which should be given to a member of the
services temporarily in charge of the post.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. In the civil service, detailed employees do not get
paid the higher rate until they have been there for 6 months. How
do you define "temporary"?
Mr. MICHEL. The way that the limit is set by regulation is to estab-
lish a minimum time of service as temporary principal officer or
charge d'affaires before the charge d'affaires' pay becomes applicable.
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If the Ambassador is away for a week and the deputy chief of mission
is serving as charge d'affaires for a week, there would be no salary
differential. If the Ambassador is away for 2 months, the charge
d'affaires would receive a differential for the second month.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Would it make sense to apply the same rule as in
the civil service? Would you have an objection to 6 months?
Mr. READ. The problem as I see it, Mrs. Schroeder, is those periods
or gaps are indeterminate. It depends frequently on the Presidential
appointment process which may be suspended between administra-
tions or at other times for policy reasons. Frequently, the full load
is placed on the No. 2 person for extended periods of time, but for
whatever period it is a heavy set of responsibilities.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We have the same problem in the civil service. That
is why I am wondering why we should make a distinction. Would it
not be easier to make it similar?
Mr. MICHEL. We have not provided for any specific period in the
legislation. This might well be a subject for discussion in the com-
patibility forum in which the Office of Personnel Management partici-
pates. We would not want to legislate any period in this bill.
Mr. BARNES. I am not familiar enough with the civil service prac-
tice. The charge d'affaires does serve as a representative of the Presi-
dent during that period when the Ambassador is absent and has the
responsibilities not only for the State Department component but
for the whole mission.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 462, "special allowances," continues without
change section 451 of the 1946 act. This provides for a special allow-
ance for Foreign Service officers who are required to work substantial
hours in excess of normal requirements. The Foreign Service officers
under the present law do not receive overtime under the premium
pay chapter in title 5 of the United States Code.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. We are pleased to do the special allowance thing
because they do not receive overtime. It is my understanding that the
requirement has limited this to some 100 persons. That is not in the
present law and not in your new section. I wonder why the limitation
if I am correct?
Mr. READ. It was an exchange of letters which Senator Pell
Mr. BUCHANAN. Extracted.
Mr. READ. Thank you. At the time of passage of last year's law.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Is this a permanent commitment? Will it apply to
the new law as well?
Mr. READ. It is on the record. There is no duration set. We are
following the existing law.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. It involves a change in mind or change in personnel
whichever comes first.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Maybe they could all hand in their resignations.
Mr. FASCELL. I think the Senator would find that extremely difficult.
Let's go to chapter 5.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 501, "Classification of Positions," restates in
a somewhat simplified way the present section 441 of the 1946 act,
which distinguishes between Foreign Service positions in the Depart-
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ment and Foreign Service positions abroad. This section simply lumps
them together and says the Secretary will establish the classifications
for positions to be occupied by members of the Service.
Mr. FASCELL. Any questions?
[No response.]
Mr. MICHEL. Section 511, "Assignments to Foreign Service Posi-
tions" combines a number of provisions in the 1946 act which now
provide separately for the assignment of Foreign Service officers, Re-
serve officers, Staff Corps, alien clerks, and employees. It says the Sec-
retary may assign members of the Service to any position in which the
member is qualified to serve.
The principal difference I think is the reference to the new merit
principles in the Civil Service Reform Act. These are to be followed
as applicable, in the assignment process.
Subsection (a) does emphasize the rank-in-person system of the
Foreign Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I am confused. Could you tell me
how many civil service employees are serving in Foreign Service posi-
tions and vice versa?
Mr. MICHEL. Subsection (b) sets forth a general policy that Foreign
Service positions are to be filled by Foreign Service personnel, but
also it is designed to permit interchange with the civil service. We
have not tried to put a cap on that and say not more than 5 percent, or
that for every Foreign Service officer in a civil service job, you may
have a civil service employee in a Foreign Service job. Those kinds of
mathematical formulas when you are dealing with a relatively small
service can operate in a particular situation to deny the opportunity to
make a particular assignment even though it makes a lot of sense.
I think this is something we will want to watch because they are dif-
ferent personnel systems and you do want the Foreign Service person
in the Foreign Service job. We would like to have this broad author-
ity for interchange where appropriate. This is a matter that could be
discussed extensively within the Department, in the interagency con-
text with the Office of Personnel Management, and with representa-
tives of employees.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you have the numbers of how that works now?
Mr. READ. We could supply them, Mrs. Schroeder. I do not know
what the ratio is at the moment. We have 140 Foreign Service officers
on assignment elsewhere and that includes a broad variety of things
which you will see in one of the next sections. I do not know what the
other agencies' total is at the moment. There are a variety of inter-
change agreements.
Mr. MICHEL. The final subsection (c) continues the existing author-
ity of the President to assign a member of the Service to serve as a
charge d'affaires. That authority is given to the President rather than
the Secretary because the charge d'affaires is a chief of 'mission as
defined and has those authorities and responsibilities as the President's
representative.
Mr. FASCELL.?Section 521.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 521, "Assignments to Agencies, International
Organizations and Other Bodies," is derived primarily from sections
571, 573, and 574 of the 1946 act. It provides for the other side of the
subject addressed in section 511(b). Section 511(b) says you can put
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non-Foreign Service people in Foreign Service positions. This section
says you can put Foreign Service people in non-Foreign Service
positions.
What is new in this section is a 4-year limitation at the top of page
37. These assignments outside the Foreign Service can be very useful
in broadening experience and as a step in career development. If you
took somebody in the Foreign Service and put them in the civil service
for a long time it could be detrimental to career development. This 4-
year limitation applies in addition to the 8-year limitation on assign-
ments within the United States which we will come to later. This is
going to apply, for example, if the member of the Foreign Service
were assigned to an international organization having an office in
Geneva. The maximum of that assignment would be 4 years.
The other difference which should be noted is in subsection (b) (1)
on page 36. Under the present law, section 571 of the Foreign Service
Act of 1946, a member of the Foreign Service who is assigned to a
civil service job with a higher salary than the member's Foreign Serv-
ice class gets a salary differential equivalent to the difference between
the Foreign Service class of that officer and the salary of the position
which he is serving in.
If you have a Foreign Service officer who comes back to Washington
and is assigned to the Department of State to a Foreign Service posi-
tion higher than the personal class, they get no salary differential.
If they go to a position of comparable rank in the Commerce Depart-
ment, in a civil service job, they get a salary differential.
I think in practice this tends to diminish some assignment opportu-
nities that might otherwise be present. It is at variance with the
rank-in-person system. We provided in this bill to maintain the rank-
in-person system whether they are assigned to the Department or as-
signed to another agency.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. FASCELL.Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Maybe you have not gotten to it and I do not want
to run ahead of you but there has been a change pertaining to the
language to the Congress. Am I running ahead of you?
Mr. MicxEL. This is in this section also.
Mr. BucHANAN. You emphasize outside Washington, D.C. We had
a quota thing but we did not have an emphasis on outside Washington,
D.C.
Mr. READ. There is a 20-percent limit in existing law, Mr. Buchanan,
to assignments to the Congress. When we have a program which at
present totals 16 or 17 officers, it gets rather ridiculous to have such
a precise percentage. We felt the thrust of the Pearson amendment
which is the root of this was to get people out to the State and local
governments as part of the Americanization effort; not to have them
here in the Washington milieu.
We felt that emphasis should remain as we understood it from the
original Pearson amendment.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I thought the situation was there were people as-
signed to the Hill and what does this do to that now?
Mr. MICFIEL. It does not remove that authority. It remains. It just
does not quantify it.
Mr. READ. Twenty percent seems like too rigid a statutory require-
ment.
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Mr. BUCHANAN. You add the language "so long as assignments un-
der this paragraph emphasize service outside Washington, D.C."
Mr. READ. Which they now do.
Mr. MICHEL. It was the original intent as we understood it.
Mr. BUCHANAN. That comes out including assignment to a Member
of office of Congress. It seems to me those who are assigned to the
Congress might, as is now the case, more logically work here than out
in a district office.
Mr. READ. That is understood.
Mr. MICHEL. The paragraph provides authority to assign people to
State and local governments, public schools, community colleges, and
offices of Congress and says, of that total, the assignments should
emphasize service outside Washington, D.C. That is, assignments to
Congress should not become so much of that total as to detract from
that overall objective.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Fine. I just wanted to clarify what you meant.
Mr. MICHEL. Rather than a 20-percent cap it should not be so many
to detract from the overall emphasis of the paragraph.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Section 531.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 531, "Service in the United States and Abroad,"
introduces a new express provision that personnel of the Service shall
be obligated to serve abroad and shall be expected to serve abroad for
substantial portions of their careers.
It combines this new expression with the 8-year limit on assignments
within the United States which is from the 1946 act. I think the cur-
rent law implied that normally career personnel would serve abroad.
This has now been made explicit.
Mr. FASCELL. Up to now it has been implicit but not explicit?
Mr. MICHEL. Exactly.
Mr. FASCELL. Was it covered in regulations?
Mr. READ. It has been a basic underlying premise but never articu-
lated in regulations or law as we think it should be. It is a basic princi-
ple of the Service and does not represent any change in that regard.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. What you want to do is provide a statutory base for
the definition of "Foreign Service"?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. It is so fundamental it should be in the statute and
not left to the regulations?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. This addresses the notion of using the Foreign
Service personnel system as a way to staff the domestic positions
in the Department. It provides as a matter of law that this is not going
to be the way the Foreign Service personnel authority is used.
Subsection (b) is changed from existing law. We have a provi-
sion in section 572 in the 1946 act which says Foreign Service officers
shall be assigned to the United States for periods of not less than 3
years during their first 15 years of service.
There is no provision that deals with other categories of Foreign
Service personnel. We think there is less need for a mandatory re-
quirement today than there may have been in 1946 when we did not
have Foreign Service positions in Washington and the tendency was
for the assignments to continue overseas for extended periods without
reassignment or re-Americanization.
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We have provided a more general statement; that is, consistent with
the needs of the Service, the Secretary shall seek to assign all U.S.
citizen members of the Service to Washington at least once during each
15-year period.
There are some categories, communicators in particular, where it may
not be possible in all cases to meet that goal simply because there are
very few communicator jobs in Washington; most of them are overseas.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the present law or regulation with respect
to U.S. reassignment?
Mr. MICHEL. The present law with respect to Foreign Service of-
ficers is they must be assigned to the United States at least once during
their initial 15 years of service and nothing for the rest of the Foreign
Service.
Mr. FASCELL. This is expanded to include everybody?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. How is this going to work with AID?
Mr. MICHEL. It will cover AID as well.
Mrs. SCIIROEDER. How are you going to make that work? Do you not
have a topheavy problem?
Mr. MICHEL. Topheavy?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think we had some testimony on that. Doesn't
AID have a problem with rotations to Washington?
Mr. READ. There is that problem but this particular provision is one
they have not raised an issue with at all in the long discussions with us.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Can AID comply with it?
Mr. READ. They have not flagged it as anything that would give
them a problem. It does have universal applicability.
Mr. FASCELL. The fact that they have fewer people overseas does
not change the thrust of this section. You have to bring them back.
Mr. MICIIEL. There is a qualifier "consistent with the needs of the
service" that provides some flexibility.
Mr. FASCrL L. There is nothing to prevent rotation every 2 years if
you want to do it.
Mr. MICHEL. No, sir. You cannot serve for more than 8 years in the
United States.
Mr. FASCELL. That 8-year limitation remains the same? It is the cur-
rent law?
Mr. MICIIEL. It is now 4 and 4. It remains 8.
Subsection (c) is new. This provides authority for sabbaticals for
the career members of the Senior Foreign Service as is provided by the
Civil Service Reform Act for the senior executive service.
Mr. FASCELL. Sabbaticals are now permitted, are they not?
Mr. MICIIEL. This is 11 months with pay to go off and study. I guess
we now have assignments in the training program.
Mr. BARNES. Or we have leave without pay.
Mr. MICIIEL. We do not have anything quite like this, which is in
the Civil Service Reform Act.
Mr. FASCELL. This institutionalizes sabbaticals by law with pay?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCE.LL. As contrasted with the present system which uses a
variety of covers in order to get your people out on sabbaticals.
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Mr. MICHEL. Someone can take leave without pay to study what they
want to study. If they want to study what the Department wants them
to study, they can be assigned to go to school.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Section 541.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 541, "Temporary Details," is a technical pro-
vision. It provides that if someone is given a job for a temporary
period not to exceed 6 months, you will not call that a new assignment
but it is called a temporary detail. It does not break their assignment.
The present law provides for such a distinction between assignment
and detail and draws the line at 4 months. We made it 6 months in
here just to provide a little more flexibility.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the relationship between this and what Mrs.
Schroeder was talking about with the civil service?
Mr. MICHEL. If someone comes back to serve on selection boards, as
an example, while they are assigned to a Foreign Service post abroad,
they are going to be in Washington for 2 months. We would not say
your assignment to Rome is terminated and you are given a new as-
signment to the selection boards in Washington and then you will have
to go through an assignment panel and process at the end of that 2-
month period. This says without interrupting your assignment you are
detailed for 2 months. It does not affect salary.
Mr. FASCELL. It does not get involved in the assignment panel and
process?
Mr. MICHEL. It is an administrative convenience in the interest of
efficiency.
Mr. FASCELL. Chapter 6.
Mr. MICHEL. Promotions based on merit, section 601. Subsection
(a) simply confirms that promotions shall be based on merit. This is
in existing law. We changed it to refer to merit principles. Again,
this is a reference to the principles of the Civil Service Reform Act.
Subsection (b) provides for continuation of the use of the selection
boards in the promotion process, and it extends as a matter of law the
application of the selection board system to members of the service
other than Foreign Service officers. At present the selection boards are
required by law to be convened only for Foreign Service officers. They
are provided for by regulation for the Reserve officers and Staff Corps.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, we had a lot of discussion with a
witness yesterday about this. Our witness professed that most of the
evaluations were laudatory. If that is true, how do you make distinc-
tions? How is this going to really end up being any kind of a merit
selection?
He said evaluation reports were all laudatory or most of them were.
You always have that issue of fairness and the politics involved in how
the board is selected and all those type of issues. We had some very
long discussions about all this yesterday but most of it was philosophi-
cal rather than substantive.
Mr. READ. The problem essentially is an implementation and ad-
ministrative one in that the system has a problem with inflation of
language. There are many steps in the present process that determine
the selection board. It is a continuing effort. There are about five ques
tions in the written material which address what we are trying to do
there.
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That problem exists before, during, and after this legislative process.
It is something we have to work on continually.
When you get the members of the Service to express their views on
various facets of Foreign Service life, they have more confidence in
the selection board process than in any other single facet of their For-
eign Service career procedures.
Mr. BARNES. We have been doing some reviews recently of the form
we use to see whether we could provide some changes there. We are
going to try to get to a fairer and more objective type of reading and
have had discussions with the American Foreign Service Association
whom we need to consult about those proposed changes.
As you know, it is a problem in the old system of evaluation which
has been the keystone of the civil service reform effort. It is one which
is discussed very widely in the private sector, how do you find an evalu-
ation system that will last long enough to be useful without being
corrected.
Mr. FASCELL. One of the thoughts which occurred to me while we
discussed that was institutionalizing a negative evaluation along with
a positive evaluation by identifying those qualities and individual
characteristics in a negative sense as well as in a positive sense. You
are looking for judgment and initiative and leadership qualities, in-
dependent judgment, et cetera. They are usually standardized in the
selection of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 weights.
It seems to me that you could force evaluations on negative char-
acteristics of individuals equally as well without making a narrative
so there would not be any difficulty in articulating what it is you do
not like.
Mr. READ. We do that both in number systems and in narrative
systems.
Mr. FASCELL. The negative aspects?
Mr. READ. Yes. Although the ratings gravitate upward.
Mr. FASCELL. It is the basic characteristic of most people.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to put this issue in a little
different perspective. For all of the problems inherent in Foreign Serv-
ice promotions, the Foreign Service does a better job than any institu-
tion in the U.S. Government in terms of the effort, time, and fairness
put into the process. If anything, with all the problems in this system,
I think it ought to be replicated in other Government agencies rather
than turned upside down.
There certainly are problems with a small group living with each
other that you get into on ratings. Every once in a while you have an
arbitrary person who wants to fight the system in such a manner that
it works to the disadvantage of the individual.
I have always found there were grounds for appeal and there were
grounds for understanding. There were sometimes implicit ratings of
the rating officers on how they rate other people.
I remember they had a form in which you rated excellent, superior,
or good and categories of excellent. Everybody got an excellent rating,
but they might be a third step down in excellent instead of the first
step. It is a sublety that is understood by the review boards, but which
might not be understood by the outside world.
I think we can stress too much the problem without recognizing that
the end effect is really a very good one. When you contrast this with
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civil service procedures, it is just dramatic. The only other area that
does a comparable job, although I do not think quite as good, is the
high levels of the military. With all our problems with some military
selection, I think the military should be commended on their system
as well. The civil service has a lot to learn.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Let's go to section 602.
Mr. MICHEL. This section is "Promotion Into and Retention in the
Senior Foreign Service." The first subsection sets out the basic idea
that these promotions will be on the basis of selection board recom-
mendations and that they will be made from among members who are
serving in class 1 of the Foreign Service Schedule.
Bear in mind we had earlier discussed the 5-percent ceiling on
noncareer people in the Senior Foreign Service. The vast majority,
about 95 percent, of the people who come into the Senior Foreign
Service, will come in through this promotion process through the
recommendations of selection boards.
The subsection provides that the Secretary will establish a period
within class 1 which is a promotion zone during which persons may
be considered for entry into the Senior Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. This is all new.?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir. Subsection (a) and subsection (b) also are
new. Subsection (b) is a legislative direction to the Secretary to keep
in mind in the process of promotion and retention at the senior ranks
the need of the service for continuing admission of new members and
for effective career development and promotional opportunities. It is to
try to maintain a balance in the system and not get it clogged up at
one place or another so the whole thing does not work as it should.
Subsection (c) preserves with respect to the Senior Foreign Service
the exemption from affidavit requirements which is in the existing law
for Foreign Service officers. The Senior Foreign Service members will
continue to be appointed to a class and their promotions will be af-
fected by reappointment. This simply says when they are reappointed
they do not have to sign an affidavit that they have not paid for their
appointment and that they will not strike against the Government.
This comes out of an experience involving a Foreign Service officer
who had been recommended by the selection board and was promoted
while in missing status and was unable to sign the affidavits. We went
through a very difficult time getting him what he was entitled to.
This preserves that authority.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. In this general area, a very distinguished former am-
bassador of the United States testified yesterday that there has been a
politicization of the Foreign Service even down to the ranks of 5
and 6. Would you care to respond for this administration to that
charge?
Mr. READ. Yes. We have analyzed that charge repeatedly, Mr. Leach.
I really do not think it bears up in close scrutiny. In terms of outside
appointments, at the beginning of any new party administration, there
is a curve up and then it trails off.
The cycles as you try to track them from 1961 to 1969 to 1977 are
really quite similar. Unfortunately it is hard to find the records of the
schedule C appointments in those earlier years in the ranks below
ambassadorial.
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We cannot assert with complete confidence that our analysis is
correct but we think there is little to distinguish the schedule C type
of appointments that have been made through FSR appointments in
this period.
Mr. LEACH. What about lateral entry type of appointments?
Mr. READ. Lateral entry in recent years has been exclusively in the
affirmative action/equal opportunity area. In terms of safeguards
against politicization of the sort Ambassador Neumann is referring
to, one very clear safeguard is the fact that people who come in as
assistants to the principal officers of the Department will no longer
be Foreign Service Reserve as they have been in the past. They will be
civil service since they have no obligation to serve abroad. You also
have the 5-percent limit on the noncareer appointments in the SFS.
I do not think that concern is justified.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Selection boards, section 603.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 603 directs the Secretary to establish selection
boards for the evaluation process. This section describes the functions
of the selection board as including the ranking of members on the
basis of performance and then provides, in addition, the selection
boards may make various recommendations for promotions and awards
of performance pay and so forth and other recommendations as the
Secretary may prescribe by regulation.
Mr. READ. An illustration would be within class increases which we
referred to earlier.
Mr. FASCELL. This is simply a rewrite of section 623?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir. It is less detailed and provides there will be
selection boards.
Mr. FASCELL. No substantive change?
Mr. MICHEL. No, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. Section 612.
Mr. MICHEL. Excuse me. It is substantively different in that it has
a broader application. It applies not only to Foreign Service officers
but to all members of the Senior Foreign Service and those receiving
salaries under the Foreign Service schedule.
It changes the scope of the law.
Section 612, "Basis for Selection Board Review," describes the two
areas that provide guidance to the selection board. Under subsection
(a) they look at the records of individuals, the performance files, and
under subsection (b) they look at the precepts that are provided to
them by the Department which describes the needs of the service. They
are looking at these two sources of guidance-what are the needs and
what are the capabilities of the individuals they are evaluating to meet
those needs-in arriving at their judgments.
Mr. FASCELL. Where are the precepts prepared? What section?
Mr. MICHEL. The precepts are prepared in the Office of the Director
General. They are subject to negotiation with the exclusive represen-
tatives of Foreign Service employees in each agency before they are
finally promulgated and sent to the selection board.
Mr. FASCELL. The discussion on precepts, is that an institutionalized
procedure?
Mr. BARNES. The discussion with the employees' representatives?
Mr. FASCELL. Yes.
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Mr. BARNES. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Is that by regulation or by precedent or custom?
Mr. MICHEL. It is under the Executive, order on labor/management
in the Foreign Service now, and will be continued under the labor/
management chapter in this bill.
Mr. FASCELL. That raises the question of Executive orders which
bear on this whole question of law and whether or not there will be
any changes or any contemplated changes in the Executive orders.
Mr. MICHEL. The easy example is Executive Order 11636 on labor-
management relations that would be superseded by chapter 10 of this
bill. For neatness, we might recommend that the President revoke it
at some convenient opportunity.
Mr. FASCELL. Are' there any others?
Mr. MICHEL. There may be others. I believe there are one or two old
Executive orders that delegate regulatory authority from the Presi-
dent to the Secretary, whereas we provided the regulatory authority
directly to the Secretary in this bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Have the existing Executive orders been reviewed in
light of this legislation?
Mr. MICHEL. We have not done a comprehensive study of that. I
can tell you what I know of them. There is not much that needs to be
done in that respect.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's leave it this way as far as the committees are
concerned; if a review of Executive orders indicates some substantial
change required as a result of these laws or brought about as a result
of some new thinking in the Department, we would like to be privy
to whatever those substantial changes are.
Mr. MICHEL. We will provide a note for the record on that if you
like.
Mr. FASCELL. I do not know that you need to do that right this
minute but somewhere along this process before the bill is final, either
in the House or the Senate, I think you are going to have to face that
problem. If there is not anything substantial, you are on the safe side.
Mr. MICHEL. We will provide that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 613.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 613 is a continuation of existing law. It is
based on section 612 of the 1946 act. It simply provides that the per-
sonnel records of members of Foreign Service will be confidential
and available only to the President, the Secretary and those authorized
to work on them, and legislative and appropriation committees of the
Congress charged with oversight of the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. How does this section relate to the Freedom of In-
formation Act?
Mr. MICHEL. This section is a subsection (b) (3) statute under the
Freedom of Information Act. It is a statutory basis for denial of a
request from a member of the public to look into the performance files
of a member of the Foreign Service. It also reinforces the position
that under (b) (6), the privacy paragraph in the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act, that to review the contents of somebody's personnel file would
be an invasion of their privacy.
Mr. FASCELL. Does this section add anything to the law or take
anything away from the law?
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Mr. MICHEL. It adds the (b) (3) point that here is a specific statute
where Congress has said it does not want the general public looking
into personnel files. It is a very much shorter and easier case to make
before a court than to have to argue on the facts of the case whether
this or that paragraph in the efficiency report is or is not a clearly
unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
It facilitates the defense against suits designed to get into personnel
files of other people.
Mr. FASCELL. By whom?
Mr. MICHEL. By a member of the public, someone who feels they
want to see more about an individual. They come in and say they want
to see that person's personnel file.
Mr. FASCELL. How about rehashing for me again why it is you
have to have this section in this law if you are covered under the
Privacy Act?
Mr. MICHEL. The Freedom of Information Act provides a number
of exemptions from the general requirements.
Mr. FASCELL. One of them is personnel records.
Mr. MICHEL. One of them is records that would involve a clearly
unwarranted invasion of privacy.
Mr. FASCELL. What you are saying here is that an examination of
the personnel records would clearly be an unwarranted invasion of
privacy. You are making a statement of law.
Mr. MICHEL. We are putting that question to rest as a matter of law
so we will not have to litigate whether particular parts of a perform-
ance file, for example, do or do not constitute such an invasion.
Mr. FASCELL. Do you have some case law problems on this which
would point out exactly what you are talking about?
Mr. MICHEL. I do not know of any specific case law problem on this.
This has been in the law for so long I guess it has precluded litigation.
I think repeal of existing authority could lead us to lawsuits where we
would have to defend the proposition that a particular record is an
invasion of personal privacy.
Mr. FASCELL. You take it from section 612 which is the existing sec-
tion of the law?
Mr. MICHEL. The 1946 act, yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. You build on that to take into account the Privacy
Act?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. We retain the provision that the individual whose
record this is will have access to their own record.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What if somebody is trying to find out whether the
selection boards are really operating properly? Would they be denied
access of a comparative evaluation under the Privacy Act?
Mr. MICHEL. A researcher?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Or a union or the professional representative.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, they would be denied access.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is that not a broader denial than has been extended
in other areas? I do not think the Privacy Act dictates that denial in
that instance. I am going back to our previous discussion where we
talked about all the problems with the selection board. The question
is what if someone really wants to question this.
Mr. MICHEL. You do have the Foreign Service Grievance Board who
would have the right of access to these records.
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Mr. READ. There is nothing to prevent a probe which would require
the Department to give extensive information about the workings of
those boards, short of turning over the files.
Mr. FASCELL. It seems to me you have two things here. One is internal
and one is external.
What is the applicability of the law internally at the present mo-
ment? Does that change with this section? The way I see it right now
it does not.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right, it does not.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words there is no infringement or diminution
of either the Privacy Act or the Freedom of Information Act as far as
the internal accessibility is concerned. You add nothing and you take
nothing.
Mr. MICHEL. I do not think we are changing the existing law.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's read it.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 612, "* * * shall be confidential and subject
to inspection only * * *" and it lists by whom and section 613 of
the bill is the same language.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The thing that concerns me is: Let's take a minority
group which claims that they were never promoted as a group under
the selection boards. There is really no way they can ask for that
group as a class, right, or is there?
Mr. READ. It would depend on the individuals who might or might
not wish to utilize their files in that way. We are, for instance, in the
WAO class action suit providing massive data. It does not include
personnel files and no suggestion has been made by the plaintiffs that
we provide them. Obviously it is within the individual's prerogative
to do what he wishes with his or her own file.
Mr. LEACH. With regard to the right of various committees to have
access to these files, has that often been requested and is the individual
notified of committee interest?
Mr. BARNES. I have not heard that there has ever been a request.
Mr. LEACH. If the issue is to maintain privacy, committees are not
necessarily the best means of so doing. As long as there is no history
of abuse in that regard there is no reason to change it.
Mr. FASCELL. There are political dynamics involved in that most
committees do not want to solve personnel problems.
Mr. LEACII. You are so right.
Mr. FASCELL. I think you had better have a very special kind of
memorandum so that we can use it as a basis for the committee report
with respect to section 613, very carefully analyzing the points that
all of us have raised so we can eliminate as much question as possible
in the language in the committee report. If necessary, we will have to
restate the exact language of the laws that are now on the books.
I think the saving grace as far as this one is concerned is the fact
it is a restatement of the existing law. That is not much of a saving
grace if people start to ask questions.
Mr. MICHEL. We will provide that for the record.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 621.
Mr. MICHEL. "Implementation of Selection Board Recommenda-
tions" preserves the existinp, law in section 623 of the 1946 act. This
section provides that the recommendations will be submitted in rank
order and the promotions will be based on the recommendations of
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the selection board in the order that the selection board evaluated
the members.
Mr. FASCELL. The board actually rates numerically a whole class?
Mr. MICHEL. Not the whole class, but they will make a rank order-
ing of those at the upper level in the promotion eligibility area. That
rank order list is submitted by the selection board to the Secretary.
This section says he cannot take somebody who is not on the list or is
at the bottom of the list and make him the one you promote.
Mr. FASCELL. How does it work with respect to assignments with-
out regard to change in status?
Mr. READ. It is absolutely unrelated to assignments.
Mr. FASCELL. I was just wondering how the assignment process
works.
Mr. BARNES. Mr. Chairman, in what sense?
Mr. FASCELL. In the sense that an ambassador in country X says
I want Joe Blow because I worked with him 6 years ago in China and
I like him better than a guy who is on some list somewhere so I get
the guy I worked with in China. I know that happens every day. I and
just wondering how the assignment process works.
Mr. BARNES. It involves what we call assignment panels. There are
variations depending on whether you are talking about new junior
officers or senior officers.
Mr. FASCELL. Assignment panels and all that, is that all by reg-
ulation?
Mr. BARNES. Yes
Mr. FASCELL. There is nothing in this law and nothing in the present
law. It is an internal administrative function fixed by regulation?
Mr. MICHEL. Correct.
Mr. FASCELL. That function is the selection first of assignment
panels, the naming of assignment panels?
Mr. BARNES. In the Bureau of Personnel, we have a division called
Foreign Service Career Counseling and Assignments. That division
is made up of groups of individuals who are responsible for the as-
signments to the various bureaus of the Department. In addition, we
have counselors who are concerned with career advice for various
groups or cones, various groups of Foreign Service employees. Repre-
sentatives of both the assignment side and the counseling side meet in
panels.
There is a panel that works on the assignment of secretaries. There
is a panel that works on the assignment of communicators. There is a
panel that works on the assignment of economic officers and so on.
Mr. FASCELL. Is this process subject to some kind of grievance pro-
cedure or is that outside the scope of the grievance procedure process?
Mr. BARNES. There are grievances filed.
The panels then hear the competing claims of individuals who say
I want to go into this, or of such and such a bureau which says we want
so and so. They try to reach a judgment as to what makes the most
sense bearing in mind some of the things we have been talking about;
namely, what are the needs of the Department and so on.
Mr. FASCELL. They have the unenvious job of weighing the balance
of the actual needs of the service, the requirements of the individual
who seeks a particular assignment and the influence of somebody who
is trying to get an individual assigned.
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Mr. BARNES. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Those indescribable personnel networks that exist ulti-
mately determine what happens. I am not trying to be critical.
Mr. BARNES. There is an influence but I would not say it ultimately
determines it.
Mr. FASCELL. The whole process is meant to be as objective and fair
as possible with human beings who basically are not.
Mr. BARNES. That is why you bring these competing elements to
bear.
Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Chairman, one clarification is you cannot bring
a grievance of your assignment. per se. You can bring a grievance
alleging that the regulations of the assignment procedures were not
followed in your case. If you say I do not want to go to Bombay, you
cannot grieve that as such.
Mr. FASCELL. You are required to go wherever you are sent.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr.. Chairman, is the authority in the last sentence
of section 621 where the Secretary can remove an individual's name
ever used?
Mr. READ. Yes, it has been used, Mrs. Schroeder, rarely. The type of
rare case that would bring it into play is for instance when an investi-
gation of wrongdoing starts after the selection board is sitting and
when there is no contact with management. There would be nothing
to reflect that fact in the-performance file.
Mr. BARNES. I recall one case in the last 2 years.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is what the regulation is for?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, that is the purpose.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 631.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 631 provides an exception to the general rule
of promotion based on the rank order by the selection boards. This
authority is necessary so that in cases where the Foreign Service Griev-
ance Board or an equal employment opportunities appeals examiner,
or the special counsel of the Merit Systems Protection Board finds that
the employee should have been promoted, that grievance can be reme-
died by granting a promotion.
Mr. FASCELL. Are both of these boards in this law?
Mr. MICHEL. The Merit Systems Protection Board is created in the
Civil Service Reform Act. That is a new reference in this bill to bring
it up to date.
Mr. FASCELL. That is merely a reference to the Civil Service Reform
Act?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. There is some overlapping jurisdiction between
the Grievance Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Mr. FASCELL. The Grievance Board is reconstituted by law in here?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. LEACH. Do you have authority now to double promote? Has it
been used in the last 4 or 5 years? Do you know of instances where a 6
became a 4 or a 5 became a 3?
Mr. MICHEL. I do not believe we have that authority.
Mr. READ. I am not sure it is precluded but it is not specifically
authorized. Where we intend to have that operate in the future is at
the lower grades when you really come in at the bottom. We are
thinking first and foremost here of the officer category.
Mr. FASCELL. The next section, please.
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Mr. MICHEL. The next section is drawn from section 633 of the 1946
act. It is "Retirement for Expiration of Time-in-Class." This section
authorizes the Secretary to establish maximum time-in-class for the
career members of the Senior Foreign Service, Foreign Service Officers
Corp and those other members whose salaries are comparable to those
of Foreign Service officers.
We now have a time in class requirement for Foreign Service officers
and Reserve unlimited. The bill does away with the reserve unlimited
concept, but what we have in mind is still that people who are per-
forming comparable functions to officers, at a comparable salary level,
could be made subject to time-in-class.
Mr. FASCELL. You will have to go back to square one for me. I
thought we just had a category of personnel.
Mr. MrCxEL. We have Foreign Service officers. We have eliminated
the distinctions between Reserve, Reserve unlimited, and Staff sub-
categories. The list at the beginning of the bill refers to Foreign Serv-
ice officers and then it refers to Foreign Service personnel. We wanted
to minimize labels and get away from these multiple groupings that
we have developed over the years.
Mr. FASCELL. Foreign Service personnel, an example would be a
consular agent?
Mr. MrCxEL. No, consular agent is an additional category.
Mr. READ. Everyone who is currently in the Foreign Service Staff
Corps would be Foreign Service personnel.
Mr. MICHEL. It says Foreign Service personnel paid under the
Foreign Service schedule. That means everybody who is today Re-
serve, Reserve unlimited or Staff Corps except Foreign Service officers.
We are saying time-in-class will apply to the Senior Foreign Service,
to the Foreign Service officers and to those others who are at a rank
comparable to officers. The present law says Reserves unlimited are
subject to time-in-class.
Mr. FASCELL. "Career" as used in this subsection (a) (3) means
what?
Mr. MICHEL. It means one who has completed a probationary period
and the tenure board has said yes, this person should be granted career
status and then is appointed under a career appointment.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Does that mean, first, that you would also apply
time-in-class regulations to communicators, secretaries, et cetera, and,
second, is time-in-class a negotiable issue?
Mr. MICHEL. On the first point, I do not think we have many secre-
taries who receive pay comparable to that of Foreign Service officers.
Communicators is a difficult one because some at present are Reserve
officers and some are Staff Corps. I do not know that any judgment has
been made on the categories in addition to FSO's who will be subject to
time-in-class, whether that includes communicators or not.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It appears to be comprehensive.
Mr. MICHEL. The criterion of pay comparable to salaries of Foreign
Service officers establishes the outer limits of the authority. The idea
is to identify by implementing regulation persons who are in profes-
sional occupational categories and pay levels comparable to Foreign
Service officers.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That's right. Therefore, a secretary's pay would
not be comparable to a Foreign Service officer's?
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Mr. MICHEL. A secretary would not be subject to this.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Even though she is in the Foreign Service person-
nel system? A communicator would likely be in the system. At that
point you may have trouble with your time-in-class?
Mr. READ. Some are presently covered by time-in-class. We do not
intend any major change of practice by this provision.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What do you mean by secretaries are not presently
subject to time-in-class?
Mr. READ. And they will not be.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What about the people who fall under this?
Mr. READ. Some of the Foreign Service Reserve officers unlimited
are now subject to time-in-class when they have jobs comparable to
professional Foreign Service officers' assignments and are in such cate-
gories and that would continue in those cases. There are many special-
ists who are in the FSRU ranks to whom the time-in-class rules now
apply. That would not change by virtue of this proposed change of
law.
Mr. FASCELL. The time-in-class rule applies if there is comparability
in salary? '
Mr. MICHEL. That is the outer limit of the authority. It does not
necessarily mean that everybody who is paid a salary that is equivalent
to that of a Foreign Service officer at the lowest level will be made sub-
ject to time-in-class.
Mr. FASCELL. How do we make that clear? Why is it clear to you
and not to me?
Mr. READ. Mr. Chairman, on page 43, we have in the section-by-
section analysis attempted to spell out a little bit more detail. It reads
that time-in-class regulations may distinguish among occupational
categories which is the current situation. They are professional type
categories that would continue to have such rules applicable.
Mr. FASCELL. As I understand it there is nothing new in section 641
except you add Senior Foreign Service.
Mr. MICHEL. In lieu of reference to Reserve unlimited.
Mr. FASCELL. You use subsection (a) (3).
Mr. MICHEL. That is correct.
Mr. READ. And the remaining language at the end of that section.
Mr. MrCHEL. We have added some language to make explicit what
we believe is implied in the 1946 act in the last sentence.
Mr. FASCELL. Where are you reading?
Mr. READ. Page 44, lines 5 through 8.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Does this new language preclude it being a negoti-
able issue?
Mr. MICHEL. No.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is it a negotiable issue?
Mr. READ. Not now.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Would it be under this bill?
Mr. READ. Not per se. Our effort in chapter 10 was not to make sub-
jects that were negotiable, nonnegotiable or vice versa. It was an at-
tempt to let the bargaining process continue to determine what should
be negotiable and nonnegotiable between the parties with the excep-
tions noted.
Mr. FASCELL. Subsection (c) is simply a restatement of subsection
(b) in section 633 of the present law?
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Mr. MICHEL. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. Subsection (c) in the proposed legislation on page 45
is a restatement of subsection (b) of section 633 in the old law.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right, limited to the time-in-class aspect of sec-
tion 633.
Mr. FASCELL. Subsection (b) on page 44 is all new?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Tell us what that does.
Mr. MICHEL. Subsection (b) provides if somebody has gotten to
the highest class they can get to or to any class the Secretary so
designates if they are in the Senior Foreign Service, then time-in-
class still applies to them. However, when their time-in-class expires,
they are not automatically out. Their career appointment can be
extended on a limited basis for not to exceed 5 years. That extension
would be something that would be granted and renewed on the. basis
of the recommendations of the selection boards.
Mr. FASCELL. How do you reconcile (b) and (c) ?
Mr. MICHEL. The idea here is that you do not exclude the people
at the top from the scrutiny of.time-in-class and the selection board
review but rather you allow them to continue only on the basis of
meritorious performance determined by a selection board judgment.
Mr. FASCELL. The language on lines 4 and 5 on page 45 is new
language?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right. It builds in this notion of the limited
career extension.
Mr. FASCELL. What you provide in (b) is an opportunity for exten-
sion without automatic termination?
Mr. MICHEL. Beyond the time-in-class.
Mr. FASCELL. You have an additional review?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right, a selection board process.
Mr. FASCELL. All through the selection board process which gives
you some additional flexibility which is what you are after, I gather.
Mr. MICHEL. At present people at the top am not subject to time-
in-class. This says they are subject to time-in-class but since there is
no place for them to be promoted to, the selection board can decide
if their performance is good enough to recommend extension.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Does this not give the Secretary a lot of new
authority? He can then grant that extension, correct?
Mr. MICHEL. That is not a broad discretionary authority because
he can only grant the extension if the selection board finds that the
performance of the individual merits an extension.
Mr. FASCELL. To the extent that it contributes to compression in
the top grades, it is a decision that the selection board will have to
recommend?
Mr. MICHEL. Correct.
Mr. READ. The needs of the service reference on lines 22 and 23 on
page 44 is an added safeguard in the overall numbers that would be
set.
Mrs. ScHROEDER. Is the Secretary bound by the listing of the selec-
tion board? Will the selection board classify them? If you get
through the selection board, say there are five that all come through
the selection board with recommendations, can he take any of the
five?
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Mr. READ. No; he has to follow recommended rankings if they are
within the overall numbers that have been set.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That may be something we will want to clarify.
Mr. MICHEL. There is a needs of the service element here that has
to be factored in. If there are five good performers and you have jobs
for three of them, that becomes very important.
Mr. BARNES. It may be your requirements fit the ranking, but not
necessarily.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You can also write the job to fit the ?one you
want which is when-the-"old boy" system surfaces again.
Mr. BARNES. I meant in terms that you might need someone whose
specialty is in a given area.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think that is conceivable and you want that kind
of flexibility. You want to make sure that flexibility cannot be dis-
torted so that somebody writes the requirements to meet the person
that he wants to get.
Mr. READ. I agree fully.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The question is how we put that in the legislation.
I think we have seen that abuse going on a lot, especially in the civil
service.
Mr. MICHEL. The procedures here would be something that would be
negotiable. Chapter 10 provides that the ways in which you carry out
management rights are subject to negotiation. There would be a safe-
guard there as well.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 642.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 642 is the other half of old section 633 of the
1946 act. This is the selection out, not for expiration of time-in-class
but because the selection board finds that the individual is just not per-
forming up to the standards of the class. It is what we call the low-
ranking selection out.
This builds into the statute the requirement for administrative re-
view including an opportunity to be heard which was required by the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the case of Lindsey
v. Kissinger in 1973. The bill contemplates a continuation of the re-
view procedures that have been established to implement that decision.
Mr. FASCELL. I gather that meets all the requirements of the Ad-
ministrative Procedures Act for specific review process prior to going
to court?
Mr. MICHEL. This would be an exhaustion of administrative rem-
edies before going to court. It would not be an APA-type hearing.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that.
Mr. MICHEL. This would be an exhaustion of the administrative
remedies.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 643.
Mr. READ. I might add, Mr. Chairman, from here on we get in-
creasingly-into codification of existing law for the remainder of the
chapter.
Mr. FASCELL. If that is what it is, we want to know on the record.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 643, "Retirement Benefits" continues the selec-
tion-out benefits. Section 634 in the 1946 act provides that somebody
who is retired either for time-in-class or substandard performance
Mr. FASCELL. Is there any change in the benefits?
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293
Mr. MICHEL. We have added that somebody who is eligible for vol-
untary retirement gets an immediate annuity but that is just common
sense. The rest of it is about the same as existing law. The existing law
is if you are retired from class 1, 2, or 3, you get an immediate annuity
and otherwise you get a month's severance pay for each year of serv-
ice up to a year's pay. We preserve that distinction. It is a rank-based
distinction on retirement benefits when selected out.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 651.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 651 is a codification of the existing section 637
of the 1946 act. I think the only difference is we have provided that
the Foreign Service Grievance Board is to be the body that conducts
the hearing before somebody is separated for cause. This is a function
where the Grievance Board has expertise, rules of procedure and we
think they will be able to do a good job. The members of the Grievance
Board who served in private industry as arbitrators and umpires and
so on, typically hear private sector separation cases. We think this is
an improvement.
Mr. FASCELL. "Shall be granted a hearing before the Foreign Serv-
ice Grievance Board," lines 14 and 15.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right. The present law says before the Foreign
Service Board. The Foreign Service Board does not conduct hearings.
It hires a hearing examiner to conduct the hearing and then reads the
record. Its members are not used to these kinds of situations.
Mr. FASCELL. Tell me the meaning of lines 21 through 24.
Mr. MICHEL. Lines 21 through 24 make this an exclusive remedy.
You cannot go to the Grievance Board again and say you have a
grievance about your separation. You cannot go to the Merit Systems
Protection Board in the Civil Service and get a second administra-
tive hearing. In other words, this hearing is administratively final.
You can go to court of course, but you cannot have two, three, or four
hearings.
Mr. FASCELL. The purpose of that language is simply to have one
single administrative review?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes. It provides finality to the hearing provided for
in this section.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is the language in lines 9 and 10 about promoting
the efficiency of the service, is that meant to mean exactly the same
thing that it means in the civil service?
Mr. MICHEL. There is a common law of cause to promote the
efficiency of the service. The courts have developed what is such cause.
It must be job related and so on. The intent here is to apply that body
of decisional law.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. MICHEL. There is no change in (b) or (c) which provides for
the retirement benefits if someone is separated for cause.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 661.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 661 is again a codification and it pulls together
what had been dealt with separately for separate personnel categories
in the 1946 act. It simply says the Secretary may terminate limited
or temporary appointments and if the termination is for cause, then
the individual is entitled to a hearing as provided for under the pre-
ceding section. Otherwise there is no hearing required to terminate
a limited appointment.
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Mr. FASCELL. Section 671.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 671 is a more general statement of the Sec-
retary's authority to terminate consular agents and foreign national
employees. This section is intended to provide a very broad authority
of the matter of U.S. law. The foreign national employee who is fired
tends to go to the local labor court and not to the U.S. courts. We
thought a very broad authority would be better so we would not
encourage local employees to come to the Court of Claims.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We got into this with Panama when we changed
the whole status of Panama. The question is what do you do with
Panamanian employees? Does that concede they are under foreign
labor law? Would that allow them the right to strike and so forth
in some instances?
Mr. MICHEL. This is a very murky area as to the scope of the
immunities of a diplomatic mission and whether that extends to mat-
ters of local labor law. We try under our local compensation practices
authority to follow local salaries. We do not pay below the local
minimum wage. We provide the severance pay and other benefits of
the local system.
Mr. FASCELL. There is no way you can deny a foreign national the
protections of his own law.
Mr. MICHEL. They do go to court.
Mr. FASCELL. You can limit his redress in the American jurispru-
dence system. Is that what you are trying to say?
Mr. MICHEL. That is essentially what we are trying to do. Let's say
in the case of a reduction in force, if the local employee feels we vio-
lated his rights under local labor law and he goes to the labor court,
he is able to proceed in that forum. We have a multiplicity of remedies
issue. We do not want him coming to the Court of Claims and pressing
that claim there as well.
We have provided somewhat more general language saying the
Secretary must give due consideration to the local criteria and proce-
dures but it does not provide the same specificity as applies in a case
that involves separation of an American employee.
Mr. BARNES. Another reason is it does provide some general reas-
surance to our foreign national employees that we are not going to be
arbitrary.
Mr. FASCELL. The main purpose is to spell out clearly the authority
of the Secretary?
Mr. MICHEL. That he has this authority as a matter of U.S. law,
that he is not violating our laws if he terminates a local employee.
Mr. FASCELL. I think we had better stop here, gentlemen, with
chapter 7.
We thank you and we will see you shortly.
[The subcommittees adjourned at 12:35 p.m. to reconvene at the
call of the Chair.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 9:35 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Patricia Schroeder (chairwoman of the Sub-
committee on Civil Service) presiding.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I would like to welcome everyone to today's
hearings on the Foreign Service bill.
This morning, we are going to focus on an issue which is of very
special concern to me, and that is the plight of the Foreign Service
spouses. Wives and husbands of Foreign Service personnel are shut-
tled about the globe with their working spouses. They suffer the same
hardships, dangers, and disease. In addition, they are acutely affected
with loneliness and alienation.
I firmly believe the Government owes something to Foreign Serv-
ice spouses. The Government is obligated, it seems to me, to provide
spouses with training to equip them for foreign environments, job
placement assistance when their working spouse is rotated to Wash-
ington, meaningful and remunerative opportunities for employment
in a foreign country, health benefits that do not end if their marriage
does, the right to share in their working spouse's retirement benefit in
proportion to the length of their marriage, and sincere thanks for their
contribution to mission that they carried on abroad.
Nonworking spouses have been taken for granted much, much too
long. One of the results of this attitude has been the growing number
of poor older women who have been stripped of support at the time
that their marriages are ripped apart. We must deal with this prob-
lem throughout society. Creating meaningful. solutions for Foreign
Service spouses is a first step.
This morning's panel includes Lesley Dorman, Marcia Curran, and
Patricia Ryan. If any one of you would like to offer your comments
first, we will be very happy to have them. Then we could open the panel
for questions.
Does anyone else have anything that they would like to add?
Congressman Leach.
Mr. LEACH. I didn't, but I do feel that you have expressed very much
the point of view that should get more hearing in this Congress. Your
(295)
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legislation, H.R. 2857, is landmark legislation, and will. get the con-
structive support of the minority.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We welcome you again, and if you would proceed.
STATEMENT OF LESLEY DORMAN, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF
AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE WOMEN
Mrs. DORMAN. Madam Chairwoman, and members of the committees,
the Association of American Foreign Service Women deeply appre-
ciates the opportunity to testify before you today. We are especially
grateful to the members of these two subcommittees for the concern
and understanding of the human side of Foreign Service personnel
matters, a concern which has been demonstrated during these and
previous legislative deliberations.
Our independent volunteer organization has existed since the early
1960's to meet welfare and educational needs in the Foreign Service
community, raising funds for scholarships and participating in many
local community projects. Our members are women, both employees
and wives, who spend the majority of their working lives in worldwide
service representing the American people abroad.
While life in the Foreign Service is stimulating and has undeniable
rewards of personal growth, travel and international friendship, the
darker side is seldom recognized. We experience the alienation of cul-
ture shock, the isolation of language inadequacy, the hazards of rigor-
ous climate and endemic disease, the trials of evacuations, and the
pervasive fear of terrorism.
Considerable energy has been expended by the women themselves in
finding creative responses to these hardships. The AAFSW has orga-
nized seminars and workshops, and pressed for training to prepare
individuals for life abroad, because we believe that the prepared indi-
vidual is the self-reliant individual.
In 1976, the AAFSW began to recognize that changes in American
society were creating stresses in the Foreign Service community. The
association formed a Forum Committee on the Concerns of Foreign
Service Spouses and Families which subsequently presented a report
to the Secretary of State based on responses to a mailing of 9,000
questionnaires.
The forum report, which we have made available to each member of
the committees, remains the most significant document to date on fam-
ily life in the Foreign Service, and it continues to provide the basis of
an ongoing dialog with the Secretary of State., We feel that without
the sympathetic hearing accorded us by Secretary Vance, the human
costs of family participation in the Foreign Service would have con-
tinued to go unrecognized.
Two major recommendations of the forum report which have been
implemented by the Department are the establishment of the Family
Liaison Office and the Spouses' Skills/Talent Bank. The Family Liai-
son Office, known as M/FLO, represents the nonprofessional inter-
ests of the Foreign Service community in the policymaking councils
of management. FLO provides us, at last, with a recognized channel
of communication.
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Since the opening of the office in March 1978, FLO has been inun-
dated with requests for advice and counsel on such questions as de-
pendent employment, schooling, allowances, divorce, medical and men-
tal health problems, and evacuation services.
FLO also operates the skills/talent bank, a computerized record of
spouse employment resumes. We are concerned that FLO might be cut
back or eliminated under a different Secretary of State. Even now
FLO needs additional space and staff. Therefore, we urge Congress to
monitor future authorizations for the support of this valuable service.
In its response to the forum report, the Department of State posed
the question of "whether the Foreign Service, with its high interna-
tional mobility and increasing demands on the time and energy of one
family member, can accommodate the modern, highly educated Amer-
ican family in which both parents work and both share parenting and
homemaking responsibilities."
We feel that if the Foreign Service is to be truly representative of
American society today, which is stated as one of the basic objectives
of the proposed act, then that accommodation must be made.
In the past two decades, the political, social, and economic role of
women in America has changed significantly. Increased mobility,
longevity, education, combined with the economic necessity brought
about by inflation and soaring divorce rates, have radically altered
the American woman's way of life.
Census figures show that two-thirds of married women in America
are presently employed. It is clear that the American woman needs
and expects to have a broad range of work choices and to be able to
pursue a meaningful career. The Foreign Service spouse is concerned
that long-term international mobility, combined with structural bar-
riers to employment will continue to exclude her from establishing
her own economic base through a career or, at a minimum, through
recent work experience. Pressures for spouse employment will con-
tinue to mount and must be met with imaginative programs.
No matter how earnest the desire to become economically independ-
ent through her own paid employment, many Foreign Service wives
will sacrifice the earning potential of their most productive years in
helping their families make unending cross-cultural adjustments and
in voluntary community responsibility. The Foreign Service home-
maker is a vital resource abroad, enriching the overseas communities
with thousands of hours of donated service.
For these women, divorce exacts a heavy toll. Our association is
deeply concerned about the hardships of the many divorced Foreign
Service wives who are left after long years of unpaid Government serv-
ice abroad with no employment record, no modern skills, no social
security, no shared annuity, no survivor benefits, and exhorbitantly
expensive medical insurance.
In order to protect these women, the Foreign Affairs agencies must
recognize earned rights for spouses and former spouses to survivor
benefits and shared pensions.
We have received support on this point from Hon. Loy W.
Henderson in a letter which we have made available to you today and
which we would like to submit for the record.
[The letter follows:]
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JULY 11, 1979.
When I was Deputy Under Secretary for Administration of the Department of
State, I appeared before a subcommittee of the Senate in 1959 and defended the
position that Foreign Service wives make a different contribution from wives of
civil servants. In reference to Foreign Service widows, I said "a surviving widow,
in a very real sense, has earned her annuity."
The following year I spoke on the same issue before a subcommittee of the
House of Representatives and told them, "It has seemed to us unfair that a
woman who, for instance, has devoted 30 years of her life working for the Ameri-
ean'Government abroad with her husband should lose her annuity if she should
remarry after her husband dies."
Since that time, there have been many changes in society. Unprecedented num-
bers of marriages which have endured for years are ending in divorce. It seems
just as unfair to deprive a former wife of many years standing of her survivor
annuity as it seemed then to deprive a widow of any annuity should she remarry.
They have "earned rights" to their modest recompense.
Most Foreign Service wives have spent their lives in accordance with ground
rules laid down by the government. Government regulations "discouraged" them
from seeking employment overseas. Until 1972 they were graded annually along
with their husbands. Although no longer thus graded, the overwhelming majority
of Foreign Service wives, realizing that their cooperation with their husband in
a spirit of helpfulness adds to his effectiveness, have continued to work with him
as a partner for the American Government.
If, after years of joint work with her husband, the marriage of a Foreign Serv-
ice wife should end in a divorce, she has at present no "earned" rights. If the same
woman were a widow, she would be provided for; if only a "former wife", she is
a non-person so far as the Government is concerned.
These women have given up the productive years of their lives following their
husbands around the globe. It seems to me that they have clearly "earned their
rights" and that the time has come for the government to honor such rights.
Loy W. HENDERSON.
Mrs. DORMAN. We do not feel that it is appropriate for the AAFSW
to take a position on the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 as
a whole. We do feel that any new act should fully recognize the unique
sacrifices and adjustments required of Foreign Service families so
as to make clear the justification for the Secretary's authority to help
families in special ways. We also wish to comment on sections which
directly affect Foreign Service dependents and families.
We would also like to reserve the option to suggest further changes
in the act to assist the Foreign Service family.
At this point, I would like to introduce two of my colleagues, both
Foreign Service wives, who will offer specific comments on the bill.
They are : Marcia. Curran, on my right, chairman of the Forum Com-
mittee on Employment and Career Development; and Patricia Ryan,
chairman of the Forum Committee on Retirement.
We will be happy to respond to questions at the end of the prepared
statements.
'Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much. We appreciate that.
Do you want to summarize, or do you want to read your statement?
Mrs. CuRRAN. I know that it is long.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If you would like to summarize it, that would be
fine, too, and we could put it in the record as it is.
Mrs. CuRRAN. I would like to read certain parts. Actually, in the
section where I deal with the different sections of the act, number by
number, the ones in my particular bailiwick, I have added a great
deal of editorial comment which I would hate to lose. So, if it would
not take too long, I would like to read the whole statement. If you
would prefer that I summarize, I will. do so.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. No, that is fine. I just wanted to find out what you
wanted to do.
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STATEMENT OF MARCIA CURRAN, FORUM COMMITTEE ON EMPLOY-
MENT, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE WOMEN
Mrs. CURRAN. Madam Chairman, and members of the committee.
Many Foreign Service dependents wish to provide for their own eco-
nomic security through employment. They find it difficult to sacrifice
jobs, tenure, and pension rights in the United States to face limited
employment abroad. It is the continuous geographic mobility as well
as bureaucratic restrictions on employment which put the Foreign
Service family member who wishes to work at a special disadvantage.
Jobs abroad are scarce. Local work laws frequently mean that the
spouse must look to the U.S. mission .for employment opportunities.
Yet, all such jobs are temporary, low in pay, carry no promotion po-
tential, earn no credit toward Government status and offer no adequate
retirement program. It is these circumstances which justify more flexi-
ble and open employment programs for Foreign Service dependents.
The Department of State, the International Communication Agency
and the Agency for International Development have begun to rec-
ognize the need for such programs, despite the long history of dis-
couraging married women from working. This is evident in recent
actions and in sections of the proposed act.
Encouraged by legislative authorization, the Department has ex-
pedited, through the A-1/A-2 regulations, a program which could
open up employment on local economies for official American family
members. It has held widely attended career counseling workships at
the Foreign Service Institute, and has begun to set up a skills/talent
bank to assist spouses in their search for employment.
As a pilot program, it has approved spouse participation on a space
available basis in FSI functional training courses. ICA and AID
have offered to do the same for some of their training programs. These
employment programs are discussed more fully in our recent Report
on Dependent Employment, which you have before you, or in your
offices, and which we would like to submit for the record.
Unfortunately, there seems to be considerable attitudinal resistance
to the idea of spouse employment among some members of the Foreign
Service community. Marguerite Cooper King of the Women's Action
Organization has carefully described the situation faced by working
women in the State Department and other Foreign Service agencies.
From her testimony last week, it is clear that women, and most For-
eign Service spouses are women, have a very long way to go to achieve
equality of opportunity even if they are already within the career sys-
tem. AAFSW is grateful to WAO for its dedicated efforts to expand
dependent employment opportunities.
I would like to cite several examples of resistance to spouse em-
ployment within the Foreign Service. In the testimony of the Ameri-
can Foreign Service Association on July 9, 1979, before these commit-
tees, the outgoing AFSA president stated that "recent emphasis on
the rights and needs of Foreign Service family members has adversely
affected Staff Corps opportunities for training and assignment."
We have met numerous times with Foreign Service employee orga-
nizations to analyze this claim. We have repeatedly requested docu-
mentation of cases in support of such statements, but have never been
given any which could stand careful examination. We admit that the
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fear of an adverse impact is there, but. the proof of actual disadvan-
tage is not.
We are saddened when we hear that Foreign Service Staff, and par-
ticularly secretaries, are worried about job security and assignment
opportunity because of spouse employment. It is our understanding,
and this is a matter which we have recently verified, that the Depart-
ment of State is always ready to hire Foreign Service secretaries.
There never seem to be enough.
Some Foreign Service secretaries say that spouse employment de-
prives them of some of their highly valued excursion tours and, thus,
reduces their opportunities to advance into new skill areas. It is our
understanding that the secretaries have, for many years, long before
spouse employment became an issue, complained of the lack of suffi-
cient excursion tour assignments.
Furthermore, we have also learned that excursion tours are usually
set up far in advance of actual tour, and it is unlikely that spouse em-
ployment, which is always temporary, frequently emergency, filling
of staffing gaps, would threaten opportunities for the secretarial staff.
AAFSW will always be among the first to defend the rights of the
Staff Corps against any real and substantiated inequities.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Could you tell .us what an excursion tour is?
Mrs. CURRAN. An excursion tour, as I understand it, and Susan
McClintock behind me, who is the head of skills bank, can correct me
if I am wrong, is an opportunity for a secretary to go abroad on TDY,
temporary duty, to fill a nonsecretarial position. In other words, it
gives her a chance to show her abilities to do other things.
Mrs. DORMAN. More important, it gives her the opportunity to be
raised in grade. Secretaries can only go so far in grade, and this affords
the opportunity for secretaries to be upgraded, and to change her skill
code.
Mrs. CURRAN. In this connection, we fully support the Staff Corps
request, stated in the AFSA testimony, for the opportunity to take
orientation, language training, and professional training for upward
mobility.
On the other hand, we have noted that if the spouse wants to prac-
tice a skill which is not perceived to threaten traditional Foreign Serv-
ice career categories, there seems to be less resistance. For example, the
medical division has recently endorsed the use in Foreign Service
posts of the professional skills of spouses who are clinical social
workers.
A few months ago these spouses created the Association of American
Foreign Service Clinical Social Workers, and took their case to the
Department. The resourcefulness of the spouses, combined with the
growing awareness in the medical division of the need for such serv-
ices, resulted in this employment breakthrough.
AAFSW will continue to search for ways to expand work opportu-
nities and will, at the same time, search for ways to reduce resistance
to and ungrounded fear of these job programs. Since pressures for
more dependent job opportunities will inevitably increase, we hope
that the foreign affairs agencies will actively work to create a more
positive climate.
I would like to go into section-by-section comment, and there are
only a few sections which I comment on.
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Section 332. We believe that this section might be the appropriate
place to add language which could protect the Foreign Service spouse
or dependent who must give up a Government position in order to
accompany the Foreign Service employee abroad. Reemployment
rights and/or credit for Government status should be offered in this
section.
Civil service status, a kind of reemployment right, can, never be
earned in temporary jobs. It is earned only in permanent jobs, and
then only if the person remains in such a position for 3 years or more
without a break in service of more than 3 days.
The mobility of Foreign Service life and the fact that all Govern-
ment jobs abroad are temporary, unless the person is already a mem-
ber of the career service, make earning status extremely difficult. At
present a spouse can work for as many as 5 years in temporary jobs
and still not earn status.
Section 333. The language "renewable limited appointments,"
which is applied in this section to the employment of family members,
eliminates one inequitable aspect of the present employment situation
for spouses. Under the old system, a dependent could have only 5
years of cumulative temporary employment. This designation does
away with that 5-year time limit.
The language at the end of section 333(a) appears to allow flexi-
bility in the choice of pay scales for American family member em-
ployees. This is an improvement over State's interpretation of the
law authorizing American family member employment in certain
vacant foreign national positions.
In our report on dependent employment, we outlined the inequities
of paying local wages to American family members in foreign national
positions : At one end of the scale, you have wages below the U.S.
minimum wage; and at the other, you have wages higher than that
of comparable career Foreign Service personnel. We continue to take
the position, as does WAO, that all official Americans employed by
the foreign affairs agencies abroad be paid according to American
pay scales.
This foreign national /American family member program, as the
committees have learned, took so long to get off the ground that only
one of the original designated jobs was still open when permission was
given to hire. I believe that the number of slots has now gone up to
three worldwide.
Even though we expect this number to grow more rapidly now, it
is evidence that a higher priority must be put on spouse employment
programs.
Section 333 (a) refers to the employment of family members abroad
in positions to which career Foreign Service personnel are not cus-
tomarily assigned. It is our understanding, after discuGsion with
management that this language does not preclude the possibility that
dependents may, on a temporary basis, fill positions which are usually
filled by Foreign Service personnel. If the committee interprets this
language differently, we would want to seek changes.
Some of the more interesting jobs dependents are offered abroad
are those which usually are filled by career personnel, but are vacant
for several months or longer. or are in less desirable posts and do
not attract career personnel. It is our understanding and hope that
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the language of this subsection and that of subsection 333(b) per-
mit the temporary hire of qualified dependents to fill such career
positions. In this way no career personnel will be displaced, the
Department's needs will be served, often at a lower cost, and depend-
ents will be offered needed job opportunities. This would be no threat
to the job security of career personnel.
Section 701(b). "The Secretary may provide to members of fami-
lies of such personnel-all foreign affairs personnel, in anticipation
of their assignment abroad or while abroad-functional training
for anticipated prospective employment under section 333." This is
new and we wholeheartedly support it. Dependents can fulfill vital,
short-term staffing needs if they are trained to do so.
However, under the present operating rules for this program there
are some problems: Admission of dependents on a space available
basis means that up to the last minute there is uncertainty about
spaces. In one case, a person was taken out of one course after she
had begun it.
It also means that very few spaces are available for family mem-
bers. Also, only the consular and the budget and fiscal courses, not
the general services nor the personnel courses, have been opened to
spouse participation. At one point in the present pilot program the
issue of preferential treatment for each agency's dependents arose.
This problem has been overcome and now each agency's dependents
are treated equally.
Section 705(b). This section authorizes the skills/talent bank. We
believe that the first line should read: "The Secretary shall, facilitate
the employment of spouses of Foreign Service personnel." It is our
concern that under, a different Secretary of State the skills bank may
be phased out or starved for resources. Even at the present time, it
needs additional staff and resource support to do its job. Its only
staff person holds a part-time, temporary position.
Section 705(b) (3) refers to assisting spouses in obtaining "over-
seas employment." We agree with AFSA's testimony that the word
"overseas" should be removed if it means that skills bank personnel
cannot counsel the spouse for stateside employment. It is just as
essential to assist a dependent for employment in the States as over-
seas. The two go hand in hand.
In fact, if the skills bank operation is to serve the whole person,
there can be no logical separation between stateside and overseas
job counseling in the case of Foreign Service dependents.
We are often asked if any of these programs assist male spouses.
The answer is an emphatic "yes." There is, of course, no distinction
made on the basis of sex. It may interest you to know that at the
present time there are at least 20 male spouses represented in the skills
bank.
Additional recommendations-we would like to raise a number of
matters which are not addressed by the act, which we feel must re-
ceive attention. We recommend that the foreign affairs agencies give
serious consideration to the following :
(1) Need for administrative or legislative action to permit Foreign
Service spouses to earn credit toward Government employment status
on an incremental basis. The Department has offered to assist us
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through cooperation with the Office of Personnel Management to find
a solution to this issue. We hope that we will see some progress soon.
(2) Need to make available on a regular basis midlevel and senior
level positions for spouse employment. The present system which
offers nothing higher than an FSS-8 is an anachronism, a hangover
from the days when temporary jobs were always clerical.
Regulations for temporary hires should be changed to permit hir-
ing at higher grade levels. The Foreign Service agencies should look
into the possibility of making part-time permanent GS positions
available overseas for spouses hired at post. We also recommend part-
time permanents here in Washington.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mrs. Curran, I am very sorry, but we have just had
our second bell. So we are going to have to take a temporary recess
while we go vote. But we shall return shortly.
Thank you very much, and we will be right back.
[A recess was taken.]
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We will continue now.
Mrs. CURRAN. I was on point 3 of additional recommendations.
(3) Need to look for ways to recognize and compensate the highly
involved diplomatic spouse who devotes untold volunteer hours to the
work of U.S. missions and community projects abroad, and without
whose contributions of time and talent the quality of our presence
abroad would be vastly diminished.
We would like to submit for the record at this time the results of
AAFSW's time-use survey.
A first step to recognize this contribution is in the works. A senior
spouse job description has been developed. It represents a career-
focused, skill-oriented approach to diplomatic spouse activities. We
would like to see more steps taken in this area.
To start with, we would like to ask the committees to put language
which OMB removed back into the act. It would permit payment of
representational expenses to American family members.
(4) Need for adequate retirement programs for spouses working in
temporary, part-time or limited hire positions. We would like to see
the renewable limited appointment permit participation in the civil
service retirement system. Those who have left civil service jobs behind
should be allowed to continue their participation in the civil service
system while working abroad. Senior spouses who volunteer their
efforts full time, performing diplomatic and community services
abroad, should be permitted to pay into social security.
Some of these needs could be met by administrative regulations.
Others will require legislation. For the AAFSW, spouse employment
and career development will continue to be a priority concern. So long
as these issues are manifest throughout American society, the Foreign
Service community will feel their effects and must respond one way
or another.
The demonstrated interest and concern of the members of these com-
mittees have already played an important part in the progress that
has been made. We will continue to seek your support. We know how
effective it can be.
Thank you for your attention. With your permission, I would like
to give Patricia Ryan an opportunity to testify.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much. We appreciate your very
comprehensive presentation.
Mrs. Ryan, we welcome you.
STATEMENT OF PATRICIA RYAN, FORUM COMMITTEE ON RETIRE-
MENT, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE WOMEN
Mrs. RYAN. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, ladies
and gentlemen.
Today, I want to consider the problem of the divorced Foreign
Service wife, and to begin by reminding you of some facts.
First, the concept of no-fault divorce has swept the country. There
is no longer any defense against a unilateral decision by one partner to
end a marriage.
Second, a recent study by the University of Texas projects that 38
percent of the young women now in their late twenties or early thirties
will be divorced at least once at some point in their lives.
Third, the divorce rate in marriages that have lasted longer than 15
years has doubled in the past decade.
Fourth, despite mythology to the contrary, alimony is awarded in
only 14 percent of divorces. To make matters worse, fewer than half
the women receive payments with any regularity after the first year.
In any case, payments cease when the husband dies, often leaving a
divorced woman with desperately little money at the exact time in her
life when she most needs it. Indeed, the fastest growing group of
persons subsisting under the poverty line are older women.
Last, I draw your attention to a statistic that ? currently is not
known. The divorce rate in the Foreign Service. For whatever rea-
son, the State Department has never kept any record of this infor-
ination. No one suggests that whether a particular employee has been
divorced should be on public record, but surely these data should be
kept in numerical form to show how the Foreign Service, in comparison
with other ways of life, affects marriages. The family liaison coun-
selors tell us that much of their time is spent dealing with divorce
cases.
Keeping these facts in mind, let us move on to the difficult problem
of annuities for divorced Foreign Service spouses. Our approach is
based on a concept of marriage as an economic partnership of coequals.
Contributions to the partnership may be in earned wages or in unpaid
activities-such .as those traditionally delegated to the homemaker and
mother.
In assessing the value of these activities, a Maryland court in 1975
awarded damages of $1.5 million to a man and his two children for
the loss of their wife and mother. The court assessed the value of the
mother's services to the children for a period of 8 or 9 years at over
$60,000. Society, however, generally ignores the economic contribu-
tion of the homemaker in questions of divorce.
Our view is, further, that the Foreign Service wife has special
impediments to economic independence, resulting exclusively from
her husband's employment. Cultural, legal, and linguistic barriers
prevent her from working overseas. When she can work, constant
international mobility, as Mrs. Curran pointed out, usually prevents
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her from vesting in any sort of retirement plan. Earlier Government
policy, as you heard from Ambassador Henderson, discouraged her
from working at a paid job.
It is the existence of these unique conditions which are the grounds
for granting special relief conditions to the Foreign Service wives,
not necessarily granted to members of other Government ;services. We
do not feel that we are in a sense better than any group of wives, but
rather that no other group shares all the ways in which we are dis-
advantaged in attaining economic self-sufficiency.
The U.S. Government has an obligation to compensate wives for
this loss of opportunity to create their own economic base. This obli-
gation is independent of the marital relationship.
In addition, Foreign Service wives frequently perform hours of
unpaid service for the Government. Our time-use survey shows -that
wives of middle- and upper-rank officers donate from 1 to 4 weeks
of work per month. One Ambassador's wife logged the equivalent of
two full-time jobs in activities related to her husband's employment.
There is no present method for reimbursing wives for their work,
because there is no satisfactory means of rating the work.
Let us turn now to the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979, section
821(b) (2). We are grateful to see this provision included which would
require permission of the affected spouse to waive his or her survivor
annuity. We would, however, like to see the protection extended to
former spouses who have resided with the participants on assignments
in the service for the requisite 10 years.
Next, let me simply mention section 864(b) which authorizes pay-
ments of sums otherwise due to an annuitant or a participant to
another person pursuant to the terms of a court decree of divorce. These
provisions are similar to those in Public Law 95-366, enacted in 1978
for civil service. This section begins to nibble at the problem. However,
the court order approach is not satisfactory to us. I will discuss the
reasons for this in a moment.
Now we turn to a section which has disappeared. An earlier draft of
the bill contained a proposal to deal with the question of a survivor
annuity for a divorced spouse, again pursuant to a court-ordered
property settlement. It required that the former spouse be married to
the participant for at least 10 years during the latter's employment in
the Foreign Service.
OMB requested that the section be excised and placed in a separate
bill. The administration would prefer to consider the issue under the
rubric of pensions in the Presidential Commission on Pension Policy.
While this decision may be appealing from the standpoint of ration-
alizing effort, it is dismaying for divorced Foreign Service wives
because it will cause a 3- to 4-year delay at best. Some of these wives
have almost nothing. Some live in terror that they will not die soon
enough, before rampant inflation or the death of their former husbands
reduces them to abject penury. They need relief now.
There are grave disadvantages to the court-ordered approach to
these issues adopted by the Department. There is the enormous expense
of access to the courts, especially for appeals. There is the lack of
precedent for awarding parts of pensions and survivor annuities. There
are widely varying divorce laws from State to State, which would
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result in different women receiving widely differing awards of a Fed-
eral benefit for the same deprivations.
There is little or no awareness among jurists of the special problems
faced by Foreign Service wives. Furthermore, these women are fre-
quently cut off from community roots or connections, and often rely on
their husbands' lawyers or on ones they' recommend.
In an effort to provide desperately needed information for Foreign
Service wives, in September 1978, the AAFSW sponsored a seminar on
legal and financial implications of Foreign Service life. We hope the
newly published compendium will be available to all wives.
For these reasons, we greatly prefer Representative Shroeder's bill,
H.R. 2857, which would automatically give a former spouse who was
married to a participant for at least 10 years a prorated share of the
retirement and survivor's annuity. The exact amount of the former
spouse's annuity would depend on the number of the years of marriage
that overlap with credited years of service toward retirement.
The only drawback of Representative Schroeder's bill is that it does
not solve the problem of those already divorced, especially those whose
participant or annuitant spouse has died. A possible solution may lie
in the grantee approach used in Public Law 94-350 in 1976 which gave
widows of Foreign Service employees retired before 1960 a minimum
annuity.
If Representative Schroeder's bill were made retroactive to cover
existing former spouses, present second spouses of participants or
annuitants would be adversely affected and would require some relief.
Second marriages made in the future, however, would be protected by
the knowledge of the exact entitlement of the former spouse.
I would like to discuss one last matter, the extraordinary hardship
visited upon the divorced Foreign Service wife by the withdrawal of
medical insurance. At present, if she applies within a specified period
after her divorce, her former carrier must accept her without a physical
examination. However, she receives only limited hospitalization cov-
erage, sometimes excepting preexisting health problems, and may be
charged up to $1,600 per year for this inadequate coverage.
Because so many health conditions are caused by or exacerbated by
inadequate medical care overseas, this is a particular cruelty. We
would like to have health insurance renegotiated to provide a better
deal for divorced women so that the costs of the actuarial risk are
spread over the entire system.
This concludes the views of the Association of American Foreign
Service Women. Also here today is Elizabeth Thurston, for 30 years a
Foreign Service wife, who wishes to speak to you about problems
related to the ones that I have just discussed. So, if you wish to defer
discussion until the conclusion of Mrs. Thurston's remarks, we will be
happy to do so.
Thank you very much for the attention that you have given us today.
Mrs. ScHRoEDER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Ryan.
We welcome you, Mrs. Thurston. It is very nice to see you this morn-
ing. We have your statement in front of us, which we will include in
the record in toto. If you want to summarize it at this point, that would
be fine. Then, we will proceed with questions.
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STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH SHERMAN THURSTON, ASSOCIATION
OF AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE WOMEN
Mrs. THURSTON. My testimony deals with the Foreign Service di-
vorced wife and the appalling disgraceful economic conditions in
which she is frequently left, especially after a long marriage. One of
the basic structural deficiencies in the Foreign Service which proposals
for the new act are supposed to correct is the-
growing numbers of persons who have never and will never serve abroad, yet
have been given Foreign Service status, thus risking the integrity of the system
and its special benefits intended exclusively for worldwide obligated personnel.
[Department of State Newsletter, July 1979, p. 10.1
The extraordinary problems arising from this worldwide service are
not confined to the employee. They are family problems. Yet under the
present law and under the proposed law, it is the Foreign ?ervice di-
vorced wife who alone is denied special benefits to alleviate the effect
of the unique sacrifices she has made in also having been obligated to
live anywhere in the world.
The serious restrictions on the Foreign Service dependent wife's op-
portunities for continuing education, career development, and secure
retirement income have been brought to your attention by the other
members of the Association of American Foreign Service Women. As
a group, Foreign Service wives, regardless of their education and their
industry, will always be the most financially dependent of all wives of
Federal employees.
The phenomenal increase in the divorce rate in the last 11 years has
been reflected we know, in the Foreign Service, and perhaps to a
greater degree than elsewhere because of the unusual strains of Foreign
Service life.
On June 5, 1977, an editorial in the Washington Post stated that
"for every two marriages in the United States this year, there will
be a divorce." The prediction came from the National Center for Health
Statistics. The divorce rate in California was already 50 percent on
January 1, 1970, the effective date of that State's innovative "no-fault"
divorce law, which deprives even an innocent spouse of any defense
to a divorce action, or any bargaining power regarding support or
property division.
Today, the divorce rate in California is 80 percent, and at least one
no-fault ground for divorce is now available in all but three jurisdic-
tions. These staggering statistics impel a new look at our traditional
views of marriage and the laws evolving from them. Of particular
importance here is the traditional view of the Department of State
that Foreign Service wives are part of a team-"two for the price of
one."
It is the law that the day a woman marries, she commits herself to
serve her husband, performing domestic chores and caring for chil-
dren, without pay, and for only such support as her husband chooses
to provide. This support was to' be for her lifetime, for if she outlived
her husband, she was to inherit a share of his estate. Thus, by law,
a wife works for security, not for pay. Divorce is, therefore, a viola-
tion of her right to share in the accumulations her labor helped to
create.
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The legal requirement that a married woman work in the home with-
out pay and, as a Connecticut court recently stated, "labor faithfully
to advance her husband's interests" is limited, of course, to the marital
partnership. Yet the Department of State has, from the beginning of
our diplomatic history, until recently, exploited the nonemployee wife
of a Foreign Service officer by inducing her to extend her homemak-
ing services to embrace establishing and maintaining a residence
ning, supervising, and frequently preparing official lunches, dinners,
From providing a catering service for the Government, the wife's
role was augmented to include charitable activities in the host country,
by teaching English, working in hospitals and nurseries, in binational
The most significant research ever conducted in relation to Foreign
Service wives was, in my view, that undertaken a little over 1 year
ago by the Association of American Foreign Service Women News-
letter. On a provided form, wives were asked to record daily for 1
month the hours of unremunerated work they contributed to the offi-
cial functioning of U.S. missions. It was found, as could be expected,
that the wife of an ambassador or charge logged more hours than
Nearly half the wives of officers with representational responsibilities
contributed more than 40 and less than 120 hours a month-more than
one and less than three 40-hour workweeks.
One ambassador's wife reported 328 hours and 30 minutes, or as
translated in the report, almost 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, enough
bassador, the wife who has made these contributions all along his
career is a professional ; she has had 20 or 25 years of "in-service"
Foreign Service wives are unique among wives of public officials in
that they frequently serve their Government without pay for 30, and
dented and unparalleled imposition on a Foreign Service wife was per-
haps a natural enlarging of the wife's responsibilities to her husband,
.although without legal sanction. By no stretching of the marriage
ried woman to work for the U.S. Government without pay. Pressure
was applied by grading the nonemployee wife on her skills and devo-
with her husband's own efficiency ratings in determining the officer'
eligibility for promotion. In some instances, transfers were made be
cause the wife's particular abilities were required at a post.
The wife's cooperation was further secured by a regulation stating
in part, as follows :
with their diplomatic status and because it is generally recognized that a
officer's success in representing his country abroad depends in a measure upo
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Efficiency reports on wives were discontinued only in 1972, when a
new policy defined the husband and wife teams and the wives' partici-
pation in the representational activities of a post :
As a voluntary act of a private person, not a legal obligation which can be
imposed by any Foreign Service official or his wife. * * *
The Department believes that emphasizing the volwatary nature of wives'
contributions will strengthen and enhance the traditions of cooperation and
common purpose which have characterized Foreign Service life. [Department
notice, policy on wives of For. Serv. employees, Jan. 21,1972.]
The statements in the 1972 directive are significant in that they are
acknowledgments that the rule requiring the Foreign Service wife to
perform her unpaid services was given the force of law, and that the
purpose of now freeing her was to encourage her to work even harder.
It can be readily seen that there are two partnerships involved here,
the marital partnership, and what can be appropriately called the
Foreign Service partnership. The first paves the way for the second,
but once the nonemployee wife has performed substantial services under
the Foreign Service partnership, the Government is indebted to both
partners, not to the husband alone. The debt to the wife was recognized
by the Congress from time to time by providing special benefits not
enjoyed by the wives of other Federal employees. In 1960, a statute
authorized a Foreign Service widow to remarry before the age of 60
without forfeiting the survivor annuity. [Public Law 86-612, Sec. 2
(a) 74; 1960 U.S.U. Congress.]
At House hearings on the bill, Hon. Loy W. Henderson, then Deputy
Under Secretary of State for Administration, explained this
distinction :
Our reason for this provision is that some wives of our Foreign Service person-
nel work just as hard over the years as their husbands do. They have tremendous
responsibilities in the field. The wife is a party to a kind of partnership arrange-
ment. It has seemed to us unfair that a woman who, for instance, has devoted
30 years of her life working for the American Government abroad with her hus-
band should lose her annuity if she should marry after her husband dies. [Hear-
ings before Subcom. on State Dept. Organ. and for Oper. of Com. on For. Affairs,
H. of R., 86th Cong., on S. 2633 and H.R. 12547, Feb. 1, 2, 9, 16 and June 2, 1960,
p. 181.3
Later in the hearing, Ambassador Henderson was asked to clarify
a phrase in the proposed bill relating to the termination dates of the
annuities to widows and dependent widowers, which in the latter case
would cease upon a widower's becoming capable of self-support :
Mrs. BOLTON. Is a widow not included in that last phrase? Should the widow
continue to receive it even though she might have become self-supporting?
Mr. HENDERSON. Yes, she would. She may run a boarding house. She would still
be entitled-
Mrs. BOLTON. And if she remarries, she is entitled to it?
Mr. HENDERSON. Yes. [Id., p. 195.]
Earlier, Senate hearings on the same subject include in the appendix
a similar question by Senator Mansfield and the following answer by
the Department of State :
Wives of Foreign Service officers have always been regarded as making a ma-
terial contribution to the successful discharge of their husband's representa-
tional responsibilities abroad. In addition to the support provided their husbands
in carrying on official entertainment they perform important representational
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functions independently by participating in women's organizations and charities
or by teaching English either at the American cultural centers or elsewhere at
the post of assignment. Through these various activities they establish useful
and friendly contacts with important elements at the roots of public opinion.
In effect, the officer and his wife are a team working together for the United
States. The surviving widow in a very real sense has earned her annuity and
is entitled to it whether or not she remarries. It is for this reason that both
the existing and the proposed legislation provide for continuation of her annuity
until her death. [Hearings, Subcommittee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 86th
Cong. on S. 1502, July 6 and 15, 1959, appendix p. 235.]
At the Senate hearings Ambassador Henderson testified as follows :
I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to dwell particularly upon
the situation of the widows of Foreign Service personnel. They are in a unique
position. The wife of a member of the Foreign Service has many duties and re-
sponsibilities placed upon her. She, as a partner to her husband, also undergoes
strains and hardships in representing the United States abroad. The Govern-
ment owes a debt to her as well as her husband. Nevertheless, in spite of certain
remedial actions which have been taken by the Congress, the widows of many of
our Foreign Service personnel find themselves still in straitened circumstances.
[Id., p. 172.1
And at the same hearing the following exchange took place :
Senator SPARKMAN. It is a known fact, is it not, that many, of these annuitants,
particularly the widows, who have no separate source of income have been in
rather desperate straits?
Mr. HENDERSON. Yes, sir. As I said in my statement a few moments ago, I do
not think that the situation of some of the retired Foreign Service people, par-
ticularly, the widows, reflects very favorably upon the United States.
Senator SPARKMAN. I certainly think you are right, and in my view we have
been entirely too long in correcting that situation. I think it imperative that we
get legislation that will correct that situation which I think reflects unfavorably
upon this great country of ours. [Id. p. 176.]
The Foreign Service Annuity Adjustment Act of 1965, effective
October 31, 1965, provided for adjustments in widow's annuities, and
for annuities for widows and wives of annuitants whose husbands had
not elected a survivor annuity retirement, and whether or not the widow
had remarried-Public Law 89-308, 89th Congress, H.R. 4170, October
31, 1965, 79 Stat. 1130.
The same act mandated a survivor annuity for the Foreign Service
wife under section 821(b) (2), as follows:
At the time of retirement, the annuity of each married male participant com-
puted as prescribed in paragraph (a) of this section shall be reduced by $300 to
provide for his surviving wife a minimum annuity of $2,400, except that, if his
annuity is more than $4,800, he may elect up to 50 per centuin of such annuity
for his surviving wife. * * * [74 Stat. 839.]
Up to this time a mandatory survivor annuity was unknown in the
Federal retirement systems. Its legality has not been challenged, and
indeed it would be unreasonable for a husband who had elected an
amount above the minimum to question the validity of the statute, for,
in effect, his consent is implied when he requests that deductions at
four times the rate for the minimum annuity be made to provide his
wife with a larger annuity.
The designation of the wife at retirement as beneficiary, the Foreign
Service wife who had labored beside her husband, was described as
irrevocable. Both husband and wife signed the form stating:
1. In accordance with the requirements of section 821(b) (2) of the Foreign
Service Act of 1946, as amended, I understand that my annuity will be reduced by
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the amount specified ($300.00) in order that my wife (the name follows) to
whom I was married (the date follows) may receive upon my death the minimum
annuity of $2,400;
2. I hereby elect to receive upon my retirement from the Foreign Service a
reduced annuity in accordance with section 821(b) (2) of the Foreign Service
Act of 1946, as amended, and I hereby designate my wife (the name follows) to
whom I was married on (the date follows) to receive upon my death an annuity
in the amount of (the amount follows). [Form JJ-37, 11'68, formerly Form
is-559.)
The Foreign Service wife's contributions notwithstanding, it has
been the administrative practice to deny the survivor annuity, whether
provided under the mandate or not, to the wife at retirement if di-
vorce rather than death dissolves her marriage.
Deductions from the annuitant's payments continued until 1978
and the fund became the beneficiary. But if after divorce an
annuitant remarried his former Foreign Service wife, she again
became entitled to a survivor annuity, with no minimum length of re-
marriage before entitlement. These special benefits were all eliminated
by the 1976 amendments.
The position of the Department of State in denying a survivor an-
nuity to a wife divorced after retirement is that she cannot meet the
definition of "surviving wife," which means having been married to
the annuitant for, under the present law, 1 year immediately preceding
his death. The definition is the same as that under the civil service
retirement system, but the provisions of the two systems differ greatly.
In the first instance, the civil service system has at no time mandated
that a married male employee's annuity be reduced to provide an ir-
revocable annuity for his surviving wife to whom he was married at re-
tirement, describing her by name and date of marriage, on a form
signed by both spouses. The wife of a civil service annuitant must rely
on her husband for the answer to whether or not he has elected a sur-
vivor annuity. If he will not inform her or if she wants to verify his
reply she has no recourse, for the Civil Service Commission will tell
her nothing. If her husband has provided a survivor annuity, the des-
ignated beneficiary is his "widow", without any further identification.
The only place the wife's name appears on the form is in connection
with a mailing address.
The beneficiary designations in the two systems have different legal
effects. The irrevocable designation of the Foreign Service wife at re-
tirement, by name, vests the survivor annuity in her immediately; it
becomes her property, it is not an expectancy. Divorce is immaterial,
surviving the annuitant is the only contingency.
Support for this conclusion is found in the upholding by an appel-
late court of a trial court's awarding to a divorced wife the proceeds of
a Civil Service "retirement policy" under the following facts and law :
In 1950, Ellis Hatcher designated the beneficiaries of his policy as
follows :
Mamie L. Hatcher, if living, otherwise, to James F. Hatcher.
The same form described Mamie L. Hatcher as "wife," and Jame-
F. Hatcher as."brother."
The named beneficiaries were not changed at the time of the divorce
or subsequent thereto. The former wife remarried and became Mamie
Hatcher McDowell, but she was nonetheless found to be the primary
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beneficiary when Ellis Hatcher died intestate in 1964. Mamie Hatcher
McDowell applied for and received the proceeds of the policy.
The one basic issue on appeal was : Did the decree of divorce divest
Mamie Hatcher McDowell of her right to the proceeds of the retire-
ment policy? The court's answer follows :
The fact that Mamie Hatcher McDowell was described as "wife" of the insured
does not change the result. The word was merely descriptive of her relationship
to him. The fact that at the date of his death the description no longer applied is
immaterial. The beneficiary is the person. The description of her status is a mere
identification of the person. The situation is quite different from that in which
a policy is made payable to the "widow." [Stokes v. McDowell, 424 F2d 910,
Supreme Ct. of Wash. 1967. Italics in original.]
The terms "retirement policy" and "retirement benefits" used by the
court above could refer to a lump-sum payment or a life insurance
policy, for they are the only benefits in the civil service systems per-
initting the designation of specific persons, where the participant is
married.
It is well-settled law that an instrument in which no right to change
the beneficiary is authorized, or the right to change the beneficiary is
not reserved, the property vests when the instrument is signed. This
principle is applicable whether the instrument is a life insurance pol-
icy, a trust, or an annuity.
The right to change the beneficiary in an annuity policy is dependent on the
terms of the policy. [Norton v. Equitable Life Assur. Soc. of U.S., D. C. Mass.,
124 F. Supp. 704, aff 219 F2d 706.] Where a right to change the beneficiary has
been reserved in an annuity contract, a beneficiary during the annuitant's life-
time has no vested interest [In re Bayer's Estate, 26a2d 202, 345 Pa. 308], but only
an expectancy. [Id.] The word irrevocable means that a contract cannot be
revoked at the will of one party over the objection of the other, but that it can
only be set aside for facts existing at or before the time of its making, which
would permit revocation of the contract. [Indep. School Dist. v. Hedenberg d Co.,
7 N.W. 2d 511, 516, 214 Minn. 82; Zimmerman v. Cohen, 139 N.E. 764, 765, 236
N.Y. 15.]
The Department of State recognized the Foreign Service wife's
property right in the survivor annuity in a letter to a Foreign Service
wife dated May 11, 1970 from J. Edward Lyerly, Deputy Legal Ad-
viser for Administration, which states, in part :
As I Indicated to you earlier the fact that a divorce from Mr. X will terminate
any entitlement to an annuity for you based on his Foreign Service annuity
makes it essential that this issue be fully considered in dividing the assets and
property accumulated during your marriage.
No one is required to compensate for the loss of an expectancy, only
from the loss of property. The question arises : Can a husband legally
defeat the wife's vested interest in the survivor annuity by obtaining
a divorce? Apparently the Department of States thinks he can by an
award of offsetting property. This position is insupportable. Who can
reasonably determine the value of a survivor annuity, and who has the
very large sums that would normally be involved in such a trade-off.
Nor is it a comfortable position for a divorcing husband to find him-
self in: He buys out the Foreign Service wife's irrevocable interest in
the survivor annuity, and now under present law he can hand it to
his wife acquired after retirement as a gift, but it is still characterized
as irrevocable; so if the later marriage fails he could be required to
buy out the identical property twice ! And it could have rapidly
doubled or tripled in value, based on the new beneficiary's life ex-
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313
pectancy. Very few divorced wives receive a portion of the primary
annuity, and it is doubtful that even one has been compensated for
the loss of the survivor annuity.
Another unreasonable position taken by the Department of State
is that of prohibiting a divorcing husband from retaining his Foreign
Service wife as beneficiary of the survivor annuity even when he de-
sires to do so. Nor is he permitted to take the larger deduction from
his own annuity to provide a survivor annuity for her, not as his wife,
but as a person of insurable interest.
In addition to the first group of distinctions between the Foreign
Service retirement system and that of the civil service-a mandated
survivor annuity for the Foreign Service wife, designating her
as beneficiary by her name, in an instrument which both spouses
signed-there is another with significant legal effect. It is the recog-
nized fact that the Foreign Service wife has earned her retirement
benefits in a partnership above and beyond the marital partnership,
direct contributions to the U.S. Government. The excerpts from con-
gressional hearings already brought to your attention employ repeat-
edly the terms "earned" and "partnership."
Earned means to merit or deserve, as for labor or service, to do that which
entitles one to a reward, whether the reward is received or not, to acquire by
labor, service, or performance. [Cold Metal Process v. C.I.R., C.A. 247 F2d 864,
872.] Earnings-money or property gained or merited by labor, service, or the
performance of something ; that which is gained or merited by labor, services,
or performances. [Abbot's Law Dictionary, p. 412.] Also, the gains of the person
derived from his services or labor without the aid of capital.] Brown v. Hebard,
20 Wis. 330, 91 Am. Dec. 408.]
A "partnership" is a voluntary contract between two or more competent per-
sons to place their money, effects, labor and skill or someone or all of them, in
lawful commerce or business with the understanding that there shall be a com-
munion of the profits thereof between them. [Berthold v. Goldsmith, 65 U.S. 536,
24 Haw. 536, 16 L. Ed. 762.]
Applying the above definitions to the testimony in congressional
hearings, Department of State directives, and other documents em-
bodied in this testimony, it is established that the Foreign Service wife
has worked for the Government. It is also established that her services
have been recognized as valuable; of such value, in fact, that in return
she was assured "an annuity until her death," even if as a widow she
remarried before the age of 60. This is further proof that the annuity
is the property of the Foreign Service wife, a right not a gratuity, and
thus not subject to loss through a contingency such as remarriage or
lack of actual need. If the employee husband had died after 10 years
in his career his wife would have made less substantial contributions to
the Foreign Service than most other wives. Why, then, should the
annuity be denied the divorced wife who performed the same services,
but for three or four times as long? Today a wife is as helpless in pre-
venting dissolution of her marriage by divorce as is a wife in prevent-
ing dissolution by death where the husband has a terminal illness.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mrs. Thurston, I am sorry, but we have just had
the second bells, so we are going to have to take a temporary recess to
go over and vote. We shall return as soon as we can get back from the
floor.
Thank you.
[A recess was taken.]
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We shall reconvene the hearing.
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314
Again, excuse us for having to interrupt to go vote.
Mrs. Thurston, did you want to complete your statement, then ?
Mrs. THURSTON. It depends on your time.
I had not marked this to read as a summary, and it would take
more time to look ahead and do it that way, I thought.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Go again and finish reading, that is fine.
Mrs. THURSTON. We have no choice but to live in our time, a time'
of the most rapid social change in history. Much of the resulting stress
and many of the illnesses that follow could be diminished by the revo-
cation of the antiquated laws that no longer serve the social good.
The divorce rate is approaching 50 percent. We cannot continue to
treat a divorced wife as if she were dead. She has the same minimal
needs for survival as a widow, but there the comparison ends. The
widow inherits the estate and the annuity. Under a law effective in
1976 a wife acquired by a Foreign Service annuitant can be named
the irrevocable beneficiary of the survivor annuity formerly made the
irrevocable property of the Foreign Service wife. The last wife in
line takes as a windfall after a marriage of as little as 1 year the fruits
of the Foreign Service wife's lifetime of very demanding labor. The
Department of State treated her like a wife, using her services, even
insisting upon them and insuring them by prohibiting her from seek-
ing employment abroad for pay. And like a husband, the Department
of State promised to take care of her when her work was done, then
like many husbands, failed to honor that commitment.
It has been repeatedly held that the marriage contract is not a
contract within the meaning of the clause of the Constitution which
prohibits "impairing the obligation of contracts"-Adams v. Palmer,
51 Me. 481, 483. Even so, the treatment of the Foreign Service wife
like a wife by the Department of State for its own purposes does not
free it from the constitutional prohibition.
A contract for an annuity must be founded on a consideration. [233 N.Y. 300.]
It need not be cash ; it may be property, services rendered, [Wash. L. d T. v.
Darling, app. D.C. 132.] or a promise to render services. [Co--. v. Mawwell, 24
N.E. 50, 151 Mass. 336.] The adequacy of consideration for an annuity is deter-
mined as of the time the contract was made. [Dalton v. Florence Home for Aged,
49 N.W. 2d 595,154 Neb. 735.]
Applying the above rules to the Foreign Service survivor annuity
contract leads to the conclusion that both the Department of State
and the Congress regarded the wife's unsalaried services a valuable
consideration. The adequacy of consideration for an annuity being
determined as of the time the contract was made, it appears that the
Foreign Service wife and only the Foreign Service wife could meet
that test, given the nature of Foreign Service work. Yet, if she is
divorced, the contract, her contract, is given to a wife acquired after
retirement, the amount of the optional annuity elected and other pro-
visions, apart from the beneficiary designation, remaining fixed. Can
the law effective October 1, 1976, authorizing a wife acquired after
retirement to be named beneficiary of the survivor annuity retro-
actively divest the Foreign Service wife at retirement of her earned
annuity? `
The Department of State deals with this issue by regarding the
divestiture as occurring at the time of divorce, not when the new bene-
ficiary was named. But such rationale must rely on the definition, in
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the statute of a "surviving wife," taken from the Civil Service statute
where the beneficiary designation of "widow" is all that identifies the
person entitled to the benefit. As has been pointed out above, such a
designation depends solely upon status, whereas the Foreign Service
designation identifies the person. In the latter case, divorce after retire-
ment is immaterial where the annuitant is denied the privilege of
changing the beneficiary.
If reliance on pre-enactment law was reasonable, and investments of great
value were made on the basis of such reliance, and retroactive application com-
pletely destroys the value of such reliance, the strongest case supporting uncon-
stitutionality of retroactive application of the change in the law is made.
[Retroactivity of the 1975 California Community Property Reforms, Wm. A.
Reppy, v. Southern California Law Review, May 1975, pp. 977-1048.] Unimpairable
preenactment rights involve cases where injustice to the objecting party is so ap-
parent by retroactive application of the law that no social policies of the legisla-
ture could constitutionally justify the impairment of that party's rights without
compensation. [Id. at p. 1051.]
The letter of Ambassador Henderson submitted for the record by
Mrs. Dorman restates the strong support for Foreign Service wives
which characterized his testimony in 1959 and 1960. In my talks with
him in recent years he has unequivocally stated that the Foreign Serv-
ice annuity must remain with the Foreign Service wife. That was'
his intent in his earlier testimony, but then he was concerned with
widows, for at that time one heard almost nothing about divorces in
the Foreign Service. Congress provided special benefits for Foreign
Service wives in 1960 and again in 1965 when the annuity was made
mandatory. Should a husband be permitted to frustrate the will of
Congress by his unilateral decision to obtain a decree of divorce? Con-
gress should now take the steps necessary to protect the Foreign
Service wife's "annuity until her death," applying the law retro-
actively to restore that which she has spent a working lifetime to earn.
Cost is not a consideration, whereas here, the Government would be
paying a recognized debt.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very, very much. I really am completely
sincere when I compliment you for being incredibly well prepared
and presenting a very, very strong case for your position on a wide
variety of matters affecting Foreign Service spouses and their families.
I know you have mentioned that you wished that my bill could be
retroactive, and also that we don't have any statistics on how many
Foreign Service families have been divorced. Is there any way that
we could estimate any benefits from making that retroactive, and what
it would cost?
I guess, what I am saying is, we are having enough trouble with the
Office of Management and Budget going prospective, and we don't
have anything for a cost estimate, that I know of, to go retroactive. I
am wondering if you have looked at this at all?
Mrs. RYAN. Only that we would assume that you would have to use
the figures of society at large, and hope that this would give you some
kind of a ballpark figure. We have no reason to know whether it would
be higher or lower than society in general. I think that this is what you
would have to do in making an estimate of what these programs might
cost.
I think also, in discussing the costs, we should take into considera-
tion the cost of not doing it, the cost of supporting women on welfare
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or on medicaid. If they are supported by a family member, then the
cost of their care is taken off the income tax of the person who does
support them.
There is an enormous loss in not implementing more things in Mrs.
Curran's area, in the loss of underutilized talent, and in loss of revenue
from income that would be produced by women having more jobs.
There is the cost of losing a trained officer if he resigns because of the
lack of opportunities for his wife to develop her own skills and talents.
It costs over $25,000 to test, investigate, and train a person, without
considering the loss of his subsequent training and years of experience
and contact. All of these things are costs that do not get figured into
the system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We have also had some discussions as to whether
or not it might be feasible to say that retroactively it would be permis-
sive for the spouse who was then in the Foreign Service for his or her
annuity to be split. If that were the way, then that might be more
acceptable. Do you think that there would be any kind of pressure
within the Service that might make that effective, or do you think that
it would have to be mandatory?
Mrs. RYAN. I think that it would just continue the male base of the
whole problem. I think, given the unhappy state of most divorced
people, the likelihood of a man saying that he wants his wife to get it,
is a pretty slender reed for her to depend on.
I think the compliance with alimony being 50 percent indicates some-
thing about that feeling. Certainly, it should be possible for a man
who wants his former wife to get it, for her to have it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are there any statistics on whether or not more
spouses are not accompanying Foreign Service spouses abroad?
Mrs. RYAN. I think that this is clearly happening. Again, I think
that the Department is not keeping any statistics that I have heard
about. We all know of people who are doing this, and this has almost
never happened before without some kind of overriding personal reason
of an ill family member or something of that sort. It is clear that this
is happening.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is this causing any problems to the Foreign
Service?
Mrs. CURRAN. Are you asking me?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Any of you.
Mrs. CuRRAN. Are you speaking now in terms of employment? In
other words, that spouses are not going abroad because they would not
be able to find the kind of work that they wanted, or any work at all?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Or just plain refusing to go.
Mrs. CtRRAN. There are people who are not going, but we don't have
any figures on that. It is very hard for us to know how many there are.
We have tried to do a survey of it, and some of the questionnaires have
come back, but very few for us to be able to get a really good reading
on this.
We all know of cases where this has happened, and we know of cases
where it is about to happen. But to be able to put a percentage figure
on it, I think, would be pulling it out of the blue. We would not be
basing it on very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So, while you are very supportive of the Family
Liaison Office, they have not kept statistics of the changing lifestyle
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trends within the Foreign Service, and that type of thing? There is
just no one compiling that data, is that what I understand?
Mrs. RYAN. That seems to be the case.
Mrs. CURRAN. There is an attempt being made now to gather this
kind of information, but posts are not always responsive to this kind
of a request for information. In this case, it went to individuals and
not just the post. The questionnaires went to administrative officers
some of whom did reply, but it was not a large number that responded.
In many cases, you are not sure either how that was responded to.
In other words, how much information was sought by the administra-
tive officer, or the person who did this work, and filled out the details
of the questionnaires, how far this person went to find the information
that was actually being requested. You always have to take that into
account.
So it is hard to tell, but it is definitely an increasing trend. There is
no question about it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Let me ask a question. I understand that a lot of
the duties were placed on wives prior to 1972. I understand that there
is a change.
Does the Foreign Service spouse that does go abroad today, how-
ever many that may be, still provide and perform duties for the Fed-
eral Government?
Mrs. DORMAN. To a very large extent, I would say they do. I would
like to make an extra statement to the last question that you asked.
We have received a letter from one of the Ambassadors in one of the
African posts citing the fact that she has no married couples at post,
and her concern for this. We published this in our newsletter. The
Family Liaison Office probably received the same letter, but if they
don't, we keep in constant touch with them, and they would be immedi-
ately apprised of this fact.
1* *1 wanted to mention that before we went on to other things.
Mrs. RYAN. One more point about the women not going overseas.
I think that it is not overwhelmingly because the women are just say-
ing: "Gosh, I don't particularly want to go to Ouagadougou," because
I don't think that many people do. But it is almost always job related.
They have found something in the United States to do. They are usu-
ally very educated women, and it is fulfilling. It is more stimulating to
them than providing hors d'oeuvres for cocktail parties.
To answer your question, while the work can no longer be required
of people, living in a small group with people, people are usually un-
willing to say, no, I will not help do this. There is pressure to do
things, and then many people enjoy doing it, having parties, and
so forth.
Mrs. DORMAN. Mrs. Schroeder, I would like to draw your attention
again to the time-use survey," which we mentioned and would like to
be put in the record, please. I would also say that I cannot speak across
the board on this, but I do know from personal friends who are serving
abroad, of which I have many, that every one of them is doing an
woman-size, or a man-size job at every post at which she is serving.
I can assure you that I am quite sure that there are very few who
don't contribute. There have always been people who haven't and
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have, but more that have, I can assure you. At this point in time, I
would say there are still a lot that are making valuable contributions
and donating enormous amounts of time.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So while there are no longer formal report cards,
there is still a very strong implied contractual agreement.
Mrs. DORMAN. A friend of mine came.out of Burma recently, and
she was working 7 days a week on various pursuits.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you think that employment abroad, in foreign
type of position for spouses, if they are able to find that kind of em-
ployment, should count toward civil service status upon return?
Should that be something that we should consider.
Mrs. CURRAN. You are talking about employment, and not unpaid
employment?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am talking about the employment where they get
paid.
Mrs. CURRAN. Definitely, I think that there should be something
worked out which would permit a flexibility in that status rule. I
think that it is discriminatory the way it stands for Foreign Service
spouses who do work abroad.
Mrs. DORMAN. It might be better, too, if I might suggest, if the pay
scale itself was an American based pay scale because at the present
time there are only two spouses in these appointments. One is in Bonn,
Germany, and one is in Calgary, Canada. Those two positions might
be very well paid by local wage scale, but in other parts around the
world they might be extremely poorly paid. Therefore, standardiza-
tion on an American base pay scale, we would suggest, would be fairer.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Fascell, do you have any questions?
Mr. FASCELL. How many spouses are identified in the skills bank
today?
Mrs. DORMAN. 800 at the present moment.
Mr. FASCELL. How is identification made? Is that a voluntary
process?
Mrs. CURRAN. Yes, it is a voluntary process. The forms for the skills
bank were sent out. We attempted to send them out to every spouse in
the Foreign Service. In some cases, that was difficult because it was
hard to get lists. But on the whole, I think that was about 6,000 or
7,000 that went out, and those forms are now coming back. Spouses
here in Washington also filled out forms, so this area has been
blanketed.
We have advised in the State Department newsletter and in our
own newsletter, in the ICA World, which is their production, and
in the AID newsletter.
Mr. FASCELL. Are spouses identified in some way in the Department?
Mrs. CURRAN. I am sorry, I don't understand your question.
Mr. FASCELL. How do you know whether somebody is married or
unmarried?
Mrs. CURRAN. It is very hard to tell.
Mrs. RYAN. Communication is one of our very big problems.
Mrs. CURRAN. The expert behind me who has worked on this says
that there is a computer printout that will identify married employees
in the State Department.
Mr. FASCELL. Without identifying the spouse?
Mrs. CURRAN. There is no name for the spouse, that is right.
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Mr. FASCELL. It just says, married, or unmarried?
Mrs. CURRAN. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Does that tell us anything, really?
Mrs. CURRAN. It tells us a great deal.
Mr. FASCELr.. What is the definition of marriage under that?
[Laughter.] I am being serious. You are talking about changing life-
styles, and so on.
Mrs. CURRAN. As far as I know, there is no other way to reach the
spouse of a Foreign Service employee, except through the employee.
Mr. FASCELL. Why I asked that is obvious, if we are talking about
a legal base in terms of the Department employee being two people
instead of one. I am not arguing that one way or the other. But it
seems to me that it becomes very important to identify the legal re-
lationship, if any, in terms of marriage. Marriage is the contractual
base upon which a claim is made for service, so it is very difficult, at
least for me, to generalize.
The other question I have on that is, assume for the moment, be-
cause of the sheer dynamics of our changing lifestyles, the Depart-
ment changes its contractual consideration, and just eliminates the
whole question of service as far as the spouse is concerned. There is
no requirement at all, and you don't have to do anything. Now
where are we?
Mrs. RYAN. I think, in effect, that is what they really did in 1972,
which has created this kind of a transition period that we are going
through now, where wives had a clearly defined role, even if they did
not like it.
Mr. FASCELL. I know, but suppose that they went the other way, and
became very definite and said : A spouse is not to have any defined role,
period. The relationship is strictly a question of marriage. It is your
choice, in other words. Then, where are we?
Mrs. RYAN. That status, unless you choose not to accompany your
husband overseas, you are still precluded from any meaningful
chance to provide yourself with any employment.
Mr. FASCELL. I recognize that. I am going back to the basics on
this thing, just to see where all of them are going to wind up. I al-
ways have to start at square 1, for some reason.
Mrs. DORMAN. One thing in theory, I think, Representative Fascell,
and another thing in practice, if I may say so. It does not work out
in practice; no.
Mrs. MaURSTON. I cannot imagine an Ambassador's wife having the
Prime Minister of the host country and his wife coming to dinner,
and her saying : "Look, I would prefer to finish this novel I have, and
I will be in the bedroom," and neither prepare for nor appear at the
dinner. They are guests in what is her home, although very often it is
more like a hotel.
Mr. FASCELL. Do you mean that it is different overseas than it is
here?
Mrs. Ti-rURSTON. There is no comparison. It is an entirely different
life.
Mr. FASCELL. I did not know.
Mrs. TrrunsTON. I think that high-ranking officers' wives will con-
tinue to put in these 300 hours a month.
Mr. FASCELL. I am sure that is true, but I am just trying to establish
a legal base for it.
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Mrs. THURSTON. I used to think of a 14-hour day, and a 6-day week.
I did not keep a record, but I don't think that it is far off.
Mr. FASCELL. What you are saying is, whether there is a legal base
for it or not, the fact is that there is compensation involved, period.
That is what you are saying.
Mrs. THURSTON. Whoever does the work should get the reward,
regardless of marital status.
Mr. FASCELL. I am not passing judgment on that. I am trying to
understand exactly what we are saying here.
You wanted to ask me a question?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I was wondering what the gentleman was after,
whether he was advocating celibacy for Foreign Service officers.
[Laughter.]
Mrs. THURSTON. I think that gentleman has the Marvin case in
mind, and I had included it in my draft.
Mrs. SCHROEDDR. I thought that he did, too, Mrs. Thurston.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't have any case in mind. I was very much im-
pressed with your legal analysis, Mrs. Thurston. I am just going back
to determine what the policy of the Government ought to be both from
a practical standpoint and a legal standpoint.
Mrs. THURSTON. I think that we have to have in this country, in
effect, the equivalent of community property law throughout the
country. I think that we ought to do it by having the Senate ratify
the U.N. covenant on civil and political rights, a treaty which would
mandate that the Federal Government pass a community property
law or require each of the 43 common law jurisdictions to do so.
In community property law there can be no real community prop-
erty without a valid marriage, but with the decision in Marvin the
unmarried relationship becomes more important.
It used to be that in a meretricious relationship, the courts left the
parties in the condition in which they found them, propertywise, ex-
cept for joint tenancy property which was divided equally. Now it is
changing because if the relationship is founded on more than just
sexual services and the parties have an agreement or an implied agree-
ment to, share the accumulations of their partnership, the courts of
California, at least, will honor it.
The appeal to the Supreme Court of California in the Marvin case
was very interesting. In remanding the case the appellate court pro-
posed seven legal grounds on which this case could possibly be tried. If
the parties did not have an express contract, they may have had an im-
plied contract. If not an implied contract, perhaps a joint venture,
agreement of partnership, or some other tacit understanding between
them, the court could look into the principle of the unjust enrichment
of one party at the expense of the other, or equitable remedies such
as constructive or resulting trust. In the absence of a contract, a legal
wife has only the statute governing the division of marital property
to rely on.
Mr. FASCELL. What occurs to me, and I asked Mrs. Schroeder, since
I was not a party to the Civil Service Reform Act, are we following the
same trend in any kind of governmental employment? Is it a dual
employment?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The interesting thing, if we look at social security,
is that we .have mandated for the private sector a vesting after 10 years
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of marriage, which is what we have patterned this bill after. Obviously,
social security is not a total pension, but it is a retirement payment.
Mr. FASCELL. I was not just thinking of annuities. I was thinking
of the basic relationship.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. There are several different things going on. In Civil
Service and in the Armed Services Committees, we have the same
legislation. In Civil Service, we got as far as the court order, which
is what the ladies addressed in here. We were unable to go as far as
we would have liked to in the bill and made it parallel with social
security.
Is that what you are asking? Are you asking, is there a community
property approach to pensions?
Mr. FASCELL. I was not talking about community property. That is
a right that is acquired after the fact. I am talking about the funda-
mental relationship in terms of employment, at the time of
employment.
In other words, I will have to strike the word "marriage" now, in
light of recent cases, and say, does the relationship immediately vest
employment rights? That is the issue, as I see it.
If we make a special case for Foreign Service, and I think we
certainly do, and if the conditions of employment of the employee is
changed so that, for example, there are no representational require-
ments, expressed,'implied or otherwise or they are expressly forbidden,
I don't know that that changes the basic thrust of what you are say-
ing. That raises a major policy question, I think, that ought not to-be
ducked.
I am not sure that simply mandating remedial action really deals
with the problem. This is the concern I have. I can see how you can
compensate for implied, or even expressed requirements of service by
virtue of the relationship to the basic employee. I can see that after
the fact you would have vested ",property rights." That still raises the
fundamental issue of the conditions of employment, and the services
required of an employee. That raises again the question of, did you hire
one person or two?
If the theory is that you hired two, then how do we deal with that
fairly and properly? We have another class of employee, how do we
treat that?
What we are doing, as I see it, so far, is skirting the issue. That is not
intended to be a pun. We seem to be avoiding the issue. The funda-
mental question is, the condition of employment at the time of employ-
ment of the basic employee, and what are the requirements, then, on
the other person, whoever that happens to be, and regardless of the
relationship of that other person.
If marriage, in the formal sense of a contractual relationship, is not
the guiding principle, as it is under current law, because it has noth-
ing to do with service that is rendered, then where are we?
In other words, the marriage contract is not the basic contract which
gives rise to these additional problems. It is the relationship to the
basic employee, whatever that relationship is.
Mrs. THURSTON. It is the divorce rate that has changed the security
that a wife once had.
Mr. FASCELL. The divorce rate is a different problem. You are talking
about annuities there. I am going back to square 1.
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Mrs. THURSTON. There is more than that. There are other benefits
to marriage, such as life insurance.
Mrs. CURRAN. May I speak to that?
Mr. FASCELL. Certainly.
Mrs. CURRAN. I would like to refer back to the employment issue.
I think that the conditions of Foreign Service life are such that the
spouse, the nonemployee member of that contractual relationship, is
deprived of many opportunities to be employed and, therefore, of the
normal opportunities to become economically independent.
Mr. FASCELL. But unless we say that we have two employees, you
see, and properly provide for them at that time, the dynamics of the
situation might be that all you get are single people.
Mrs. CURRAN. That is a problem, yes.
Mr. FASCELL. I know, and that is not even controlled by law that I
can see.
Mrs. CURRAN. I think you can control it to some degree. If more
opportunities are offered, which is what we are talking about today
in terms of permitting people who do want to be married, and who
are willing to undergo the hardships that go along with Foreign
Service life, but with some limitations. In other words, they would
like these hardships to be lessened, if at all possible. They don't want
to break up their marriage, and I don't think that they should have to
make that choice.
I think that they should be recognized. We recognize the institution
of the family and marriage as an important part of our society. Do we
want our Foreign Service not to recognize that as an important part
of our society? I think that that is a fundamental issue, you are ab-
solutely right.
Mr. FASCELL. You are right. It is a national policy, certainly, ac-
cepted by society. Whether we live up to it is a horse of another color.
At least, we talk a good game.
Mrs. CURRAN. But things can be done to ameliorate the situation,
which is what we are asking for.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that, and I realize that. I know that
you make a case that is distinguishing as far as the Foreign Service
is concerned, and I say that I think maybe that is rational. But it still
leaves the question of what do you do about the other women. or other
spouses in other services of employment.
I find it very hard to distinguish it, for example, from any civil
service employment. It does not distinguish it for me to say that it is
overseas and it is a hardship post, or that there are representational
duties that fall upon a wife, if the theory is that the spouse contributes,
in the spouse's lifetime, to whatever it is that the basic employee is
doing.
Then, there is a matter of justice and equity. It does not make any
difference who that employee is, and who he is working for. That is
the point that I am getting at.
If that follows, if there is any logic to it, and I am not saying there
is, then we are dealing with a broad policy. I am not sure that we want
to set the precedent of distinguishing or separating out, or discrimi-
nating, or creating an inequity, no matter how worthy it may seem
on the merits, for the Foreign Service spouse. This is the point that
I am making.
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Mrs. RYAN. I don't think that you are creating an inequity. I think
you are righting an inequity.
Mr. FASCELL. But we are going to create one for a lot of other people.
Mrs. RYAN. 1 think that you are right, these issues are the same
for any wife in any circumstances that her contribution as a home-
maker should be taken into consideration. We say that, and we said it.
We say also that there are further and greater reasons for taking
care of Foreign Service wives. What you decide to do on national
policy with other wives, we have no control over. To deny it to women
who are disadvantaged in these particular ways, we say it is simply
inequity.
A military man may take his family once or twice overseas. They
may have to serve overseas. A military wife could conceivably stitch
together some kind of social security for herself, working a little here
and working a little there in various posts. It is very tough, I don't
pretend otherwise. But nobody else in the Government has quite all
of the problems.
Mr. FASCELL. I agree with that.
Mrs. RYAN. It is just on that basis, not on something that is owed to
all women, which we would probably agree with in any case.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If the gentleman would yield.
Mr. FASCELL. Certainly.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think that what you are driving at has been deter-
mined by this body in the private sector, and that, once again, is the
social security laws. There we don't have any test. The test is, was the
couple married 10 years. If so, there is a vested right, which'says that
the Federal Government realizes that the wife has contributed some-
thing, allowing the other person to go out and provide other services.
She, then, has a vested right without a court decree, without anything.
So we have clearly done that for the majority of women in America.
The only test being, were you or were you not officially married-
Marvin may have a different test, but that has not been tested yet. If
you are officially married for 10 years, you do have a vested right in
social security. We have never extended that to Federal employees.
So it has been Federal policy for everyone, except Federal employees.
So, what you are asking, we have already acted on as a body for every-
one else, except for Federal employees.
So we are really not asking for anything special. We are asking for
the sine kind of treatment for annuity rights that has already been
granted to the whole rest of the country in the private sector.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't want to disagree, but what they have been tell-
ing me, as far as I am concerned, goes far beyond the annuity. But I
don't want to argue that point.
Mrs. THURSTON. It has already happened. The Peace Corps now has
husband-wife teams as co-country directors, as a way of solving the
spouse-job problem. The spouses are given equal authority in the work,
equal responsibility and the paycheck is split.
The Peace Corps explained the development as the result of their
losing too many good couples because they could not offer the wife a
job and she simply refused to have her husband go off, or to accompany
him for nothing. I liked the Foreign Service. It was hard, and there
were times when I hated the moves and the too-full schedules. But
there was great satisfaction when you got the right people together,
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and you.knew the food was the very best you knew how to do. You,
know when it goes well, and there is great satisfaction. But, then,
you are geared to it. You start making adjustments very early in your
life, if you go in as the wife of a young career officer. But there is one
adjustment that you can never make, and that is when you are through
with all that work and you have no annuity.
Mr. FASCELL. I have no problem with the establishment of annuity
rights, none whatever.
Mrs. THURSTON. My theory is that the Foreign Service wife's right
to the survivor annuity has already been established by Federal "law
in cases of retirement before the amendments effective on October 1,
1976. Two for the price of one has been the story in the Foreign Serv-
ice, and salaries for Foreign Service dependent wives have been dis-
cussed since we went into the Service in 1937. For 32 years I heard it
repeatedly. Nothing ever came of it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I do want to thank all of you for coming. I really
want to compliment you once again for your presentations.
I think that since no one seems to really know whether or not the
divorce rate is higher in the Foreign Service than in the community
at large-I know there are some Foreign Service representatives here,
if there is any way that they could find that out, it would be very
helpful to the committee, I think.
Mr. FASCELL. The other thing, Madam Chairwoman, would be to de-
termine the other people who would be affected if there is a retro-
active application going back to the beginning. We have to have some
idea of what we are talking about in terms of people.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. If there is any way that the Foreign Service people
can get that to the committee, it certainly would help us.
Mrs. THURsToN. There is
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think that we want that from the Foreign' Service
representatives.
Mrs. THURSTON. Yes; I would like that.
Mr. FASCELL. I think Mrs. Thurston was going to tell us where we
could get the information.
Mrs. THURSTON. There is a residence and dependency report which
shows change of dependents. So when a wife dies, or there is a divorce,
and there is a new wife put on for travel orders and such things, there
is a way of knowing. Then, you can check the Foreign Service Journal,
which reports the death of every wife in the Foreign Service, or an-
nuitant's wife, to learn whether the former marriage was dissolved
by death or divorce.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Maybe the representatives from the Foreign Serv-
ice will be able to utilize that to give us the information.
I thank you again for appearing. With that, we will adjourn the
hearing.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittees adjourned, subject to
call of the Chair.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 2 :12 p.m., in room 2200, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Patricia Schroeder (chairwoman of the Sub-
committee on Civil Service) presiding.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We meet today to continue our hearings on Foreign
Service personnel reform legislation. Our witnesses today include
Mr. Jose Arinilla, vice president, foreign affairs chapter of the Asian
and Pacific Americans Federal Employee Council; Mr. Lannon
Walker and Mr. William Harrop, both senior Foreign Service officers
and former presidents of AFSA; and Ms. Cynthia Thomas, Foreign
Service Reserve officer, who is accompanied by Mr. Philip M. Lindsay,
retired Foreign Service officer.
Mr. Armilla, we have your prepared statement so you may proceed.
We will go ahead and proceed if that is all right and I am sure
Congressman Fascell will be here shortly.
Mr. Armilla, welcome. We are very glad to have you here
STATEMENT OF JOSE ARMILLA, VICE PRESIDENT, FOREIGN
AFFAIRS CHAPTER, ASIAN AND PACIFIC AMERICANS FEDERAL
EMPLOYEES COUNCIL
Mr. ARMILLA. Madam Chairwoman, we appreciate and are most
-ratified to have this opportunity to testify on the proposed Foreign
Service Act from the perspective of Asian and Pacific Americans.
My name is Jose Armilla. I am with USICA. With me are, on the
left, Elliott Chan, with the Department of State, and on my right,
Cecil Uyehara with AID. However, we are all appearing before you
in our personal capacities on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Chapter
(FAC) of the Asian and Pacific American Federal Employee Council
(APAFEC), which is a national organization of Asian and Pacific
Americans in the Federal Service.
FAC's membership comprises Asian and Pacific American em-
ployees in the foreign affairs agencies; namely, the Department of
State (State), Agency for International Development (AID), and
the U.S. International Communication Agency (USICA). Member-
ship is also open to Asian and Pacific American employees in other
(325)
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326
Federal agencies engaged in foreign affairs; for example, ACTION,
Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture, and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
The Federal Government defines an Asian or Pacific Islander as any
person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East,
Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the Pacific Islands. This
area includes, for example, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines,
Guam, and Samoa. Hereafter the term "Asian Americans" will be used
for convenience.
In connection with Secretary Vance's testimony on the proposed
1979 Foreign Service Act on June 22, it was reported in the media
that Madam Chairwoman noted the poor record of the Department in
the employment of blacks, Hispanics, and women. Asian Americans
were not mentioned. We were not surprised since we are often over-
looked due to the Asian tradition of keeping a low profile. A Chinese
proverb says that "a half-full bottle of soy sauce makes noise, but a
full bottle remains quiet."
However, we are Americans and, following the American tradition,
we do have something to say today about our repressed hopes and com-
petences. We take this opportunity respectfully to draw to the atten-
tion of the joint subcommittees the record of the Department of State
on the employment of Asian Americans which is far worse than that
of other minorities.
We appear today :
First, to present a limited perspective from Asian American em-
ployees in the foreign .affairs agencies regarding their plight under
the 1946 Foreign Service Act due to discrimination and lack of a mean-
ingful role in the formulation and effectuation of U.S. foreign policy;
Second, to seek your support for equitable and equal opportunities
for employment and decent treatment for Asian Americans in the
foreign affairs agencies on the basis of qualifications, training, ability
and merit; and
Third, to solicit your support to amend the proposed 1979 Foreign
Service Act through specific language which we are proposing, in order
to strengthen and effectuate these foregoing principles and objectives
as a matter of justice for all employees including Asian Americans,
by making equal opportunity in all aspects of employment in the
Foreign Service as a statutory requirement of the 1979 Foreign Service
Act.
At the outset, we should like to emphasize that FAC fully supports
the Department of State's efforts and dedication to excellence and the
merit principle in the conduct and formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
At the same time, we are not commenting on the details proposed to
the 1979 Foreign Service Act by the American Foreign Service Asso-
ciation (AFSA), the American Federation of Government Employees
(AFGE), the Women's Action Organization (WAO), and others.
President Carter on February 24, 1977, in commenting on equal
employment opportunities for minorities, noted :
I think, to be perfectly frank, that the State Department is probably the de-
partment that needs progress more than any other and I am determined that this
will be done.
Secretary Vance, in accepting in June 1977 the report of the De-
partment's Executive Level Task Force and the Equal Opportunity
Plan for 1977, stated :
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It is the policy of the Department of State to promote equal opportunity in
employment for all persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because
of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and to achieve equal opportunity
in all personal (sic) operations through a continuing affirmative program.
FAC applauded and supported State's and AID's affirmative ac-
tion programs and initiated a series of discussions and exchanges of
letters with management both in State and AID. FAC had urged the
management in State and AID (1) to make a sustained effort to re-
cruit qualified Asian Americans from the outside, and (2) to consider
Asian Americans already employed within State and AID for posi-
tions from the junior level to the senior levels.
With your permission, in order to convey a more complete picture,
we would like to insert for the record selected papers and letters con-
cerning these exchanges.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Without objection, we will be happy to receive it.,'
Mr. ARMILLA. As you can see in the following table, there was only
one Asian American at State's policymaking level 2 years ago. None of
the Asian Americsn FSO-2's or GS-15's were appointed or promoted
to senior level positions.
[The table referred to follows:]
ASIAN AMERICANS IN STATE, AID AND USICA-MIDDLE- AND UPPER-LEVEL EMPLOYEES
State (1979 work force-12,793):
Assistant secretaries___________________________________________
Deputy assistant secretary _____________________________________
Ambassadors/DCM's___________________________________________
Principalotficers ----------------------------------------------
Country office directors________________________________________
GS-16-18----------------------------------------------------
GS-15 (?)
GS-13-14
FSO-1-2
FSO-3
FSO-4-5
FSR-1-2
FSR-3
FSR-4-5
AID (1979 work force-4,021):
Assistant administrator________________________________________
Deputy assistant administrator__________________________________
Mission director_______________________________________________
Deputy mission director----------------------------------------
FSR I-2------------------------------------------------------
GS/AD-16-18-------------------------------------------------
GS-15-------------------------------------------------------
FSR-3-------------------------------------------------------
GS-13-14----------------------------------------------------
FSR-4-5-----------------------------------------------------
USICA (1979 work force-4,293):
Senior Washington leadership (1 GS-17)_________________________
Country public affairs officer-----------------------------------
FS 10-1-2
FSIO-3
FSIO-4-5
GS-16-18 ----------------------------------------------------
GS-15-------------------------------------------------------
GS-13-14
rSR-1-2
FSR-3-------------------------------------------------------
FSR-4-5-----------------------------------------------------
Net change
1979
(gain or loss)
None
I 1
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
I ----------- (?)
2 --------------
5 --------------
9 --------------
I --------------
3
--------------
11
--------------
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
11
None
None
None
None
None
None
6
2
13
2
9
2
16
31
33
(4
a'
None
None
None
None
None
None
4
4
6
32
a
a
None
None
Non
e
9
9
None
1
33
I Loss.
2 Data not available for 1977, hence net change cannot be determined.
a Gain.
4 No change.
a 1 GS-17 is already counted in the senior leadership.
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Mr. ARMILLA. In AID, the exclusion of Asian Americans from
senior positions is much more glaring. No Asian American, except one
who is not a supergrade, was appointed to a senior level position
despite the fact that among all minority groups Asian Americans have
the highest percentage of qualified employees from which selection
could have been made. We also have evidence-hhown in the ap-
pendix-that for almost all grades Asian Americans remain in their
grades longer than the average time-in-grade for other employees.
In USICA the story of standing still in the same grade or suffering
losses through attrition repeats itself for Asian Americans. The only
policy-level Asian American is a Deputy Area Director.
Thus, despite promises of affirmative action, Asian Americans have
made no progress whatsoever at the policymaking levels in the for-
eign affairs agencies in the past 2 years. What little gains Asian Amer-
icans have made were a few positions at the middle levels.
Since 1977, in the view of FAC, the situation of Asian Americans
in State, AID, and USICA has deteriorated significantly. In State
the first Asian American Assistant Secretary is now no longer with
the Department. The office directorship of an Asian American-male
FSR-2-was abolished in a reorganization and his services are being
terminated. An Asian American officer-female FSR-5-recruited
under the midlevel affirmative action program, is in the process of leav-
ing because of a perceived lack of opportunity for upward mobility.
An Asian American officer-male GS-15-was informed in 1977 that
he had been a victim of past discrimination and was deserving of pro-
motion at the earliest opportunity ; after 2 years he still has not been
promoted.
In AID we strived to achieve a rather modest objective-the ap-
pointment,of Asian American Mission or Deputy Directors. An Asian
American officer-male FSR-2-was hired as Deputy Mission Direc-
tor but after serving 6 months he was demoted. Asian Americans are
the only minority group in AID whose senior level targets have re-
mained essentially unfulfilled. Some Asian Americans have already
filed complaints against AID based on race discrimination. An Asian
American officer-male GS-15-has filed a grievance complaint. An-
other Asian American officer-male FSR-5-has also filed a grievance
complaint. One Asian American female has filed a complaint because
she was denied employment on the grounds of race discrimination.
We would like to state categorically for the record that Asian
Americans are not seeking special preferential treatment, lower stand-
ards or tokenism. We, the Asian Americans, like other minorities,
women and American citizens in general, seek equal opportunities for
just, fair, equitable, and decent treatment on the basis of training,
qualification, merit, and demonstrated ability. Because of continuing
race discrimination, Asian Americans feel that they have the dubious
distinction of being a minority within a minority, a "double minority"
if we may use the term.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am going to have to have a temporary recess while
I run over and vote. We will have a temporary recess until the vote
is concluded.
Mr. ARMiLLA. Certainly, Madam Chairwoman.
[Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You may proceed, Mr. Armilla.
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Mr. ARTfI r.A. Thank you.
Also, for the record, we should like to state that for Asian Ameri-
cans equal opportunity means that they be judged and rewarded on
the basis of merit without regard to factors not relevant to their job
performance and potential. Affirmative action, in the view of Asian
Americans, means positive measures which will place them like other
American citizens in positions equivalent to their skills and potential.
It also means positive acts to remedy underrepresentation when pre-
sented with a choice between equally qualified candidates. Excellence
and merit should determine one's level of success.
We firmly believe that Asian Americans can contribute and should
be given the opportunity for service in the Foreign Service and civil
service in accordance with the highest professional qualities. Of all
American ethnic groups, Asian Americans are the best educated. In
1976, the percent of Asian Americans in their twenties who had com-
pleted at least 4 years of college was much higher than the white ma-
jority. For example, 52 percent of Chinese Americans, 44 percent of
Japanese Americans, and 43 percent of Philippine Americans com-
pleted 4 years of college while only 28 percent of the white majority
completed at least 4 years of college. The college completion rate for
these Asian Americans was 61 percent higher than for the white ma-
jority ["Social Indicators of Equality for Minorities and Women,"
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, August 1978].
State, AID, and USICA will be made more representative and
efficient by employing Asian Americans in ranking positions. Only
when a significant number of Asian Americans-and other minorities
and women-serve in the Foreign Service and civil service at all levels
will we be able to combat effectively the impression throughout the
world that Asian Americans have no role in policyinaking--an im-
pression which is damaging to U.S. interests.
Domestically, the presence of Asian Americans in the various ranks
in the foreign affairs agencies would reflect the values and diversities
of American society. Nonuse of available qualified Asian Americans
in these agencies is a waste of talent; Asian Americans are an "under-
utilized national resource." Adequate consideration of Asian Ameri-
cans for senior level positions would increase the size of the qualified
applicant pool, thereby increasing competition for high level policy
positions.
Abroad, Asian Americans in policy positions would prove to the
world that the system in the foreign affairs agencies is democratic and
generally representative of the American people. This would lend
added credibility to U.S. policies and concerns for fundamental
human rights, political, social, and economic rights and free democratic
institutions.
Only when Asian Americans are employed in ranking positions of
importance in State, AID, and USICA can there be effective political
substantive participation, contribution of foreign policy views, and
articulation of this country's core national interests.
As the above testimony shows, the foreign affairs agencies on their
own are unable or unwilling to carry out the goals of equal opportu-
nities for employment and upward mobility based on merit. The Of-
fice of Equal Employment Opportunity is not mentioned in the pro-
posed 1979 Foreign Service Act. Equal opportunity in all aspects of
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employment, including Asian Americans, should be required under
the proposed law.
In light of the foregoing, we would like to solicit your support for
an amendment to the Foreign Service Act.
We are offering some suggested rewording for a number of sections
of the proposed Foreign Service Act which would strengthen, as a
statutory mandate, the principle of 'equal and equitable opportunities
for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or na-
tional origin. The suggested changes would inhibit the management
and personnel people from overt or covert discriminatory practices
and direct them to apply and effectively implement the principle of
equality of treatment in all phases of employment in the foreign af-
fairs agencies.
More specifically, the proposed amendments are set forth below and
I will not go into the details at this time unless you want me to.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. No, that is fine. We are glad to have them for the
record.
Mr. ARMILLA. The underscored language represents additions.
[The proposed amendments follow:]
(Chapter 1-General Provisions, Section 101 (b)) as a separate objective : to
create and execute in a vigorous manner a systematic and sustained equal em-
ployment opportunity program in order to assure that th_e Foreign Service is rep-
resentative of the American people.
(Chapter 2, Section 205. The Inspector General) Under the direction of the
Secretary, the Inspector General shall inspect the work of each Foreign Service
post at least every three years, shall inspect periodically the bureaus and offices
of the Department of State, shall examine whether merit and equal opportunity
principles have been observed in the management of the Department and Mis-
sions abroad, and shall perform such functions as the Secretary may prescribe.
(Chapter 3, Section 301. (b)) The Secretary shall prescribe appropriate writ-
ten, oral, physical and other examinations for appointment to the Service (other
than as a chief of mission) in accordance with merit and equal opportunity
principles.
(Chapter 5, Section 511. (a)) The Secretary may assign a member of the Serv-
ice, in accordance with merit and equal opportunity principles, to any position ...
(Chapter 6, Section 601. (a)) Promotions in the Service shall be based upon
merit and equal opportunity principles.
Mr. ARMILLA. In conclusion, we thank you again for your patience
and valuable time in listening to us. We believe, in view of our ex-
perience, that you are our highest resort. We sincerely hope that you
will favorably consider the situation of the Asian Americans in the
foreign affairs agencies and provide an appropriate and effective
remedy.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very, much. We appreciate your sug-
gestions and your statement. .
Do you have any idea whether the record for Asian Americans un-
der the Civil Service system is any better than it has been under the
Foreign Service?
Mr. ARMILLA. Yes ; we have actually a statement from the U.S. Civil
Service Commission which indicates that Asian and Pacific Americans
decreased in numbers throughout all major pay systems in the full
Federal work force. This is the report on minorities on November 30,
1977. What this means is that there is a decreasing number of Asian
Americans who, despite their qualifications, are remaining in the Fed-
eral service; they are going someplace else.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think what I heard you say is that the numbers
are not that much better in the civil service.
Mr. ARMILLA. That is correct.
Mrs. SCHROEDRR. The Foreign Service is bad but so is the civil
service.
Mr. ARMILLA. Yes, in terms of absolute numbers. Yes, Madam
Chairwoman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Why do you think that Asian Americans have
fared so poorly in the foreign service agencies?
Mr. ARMILLA. As a general statement, they fared poorly because of
the problem of assimilation. The only two groups of Asian Americans
that have been here long enough and the best educated, I think, are
the Japanese Americans and the Chinese Americans. This means that
the second generation are highly qualified to enter and are indeed in
the foreign affairs agencies by proportion, but they never serve, with
few exceptions, in policy level positions. We are represented in the
middle level positions in foreign affairs agencies but not in the senior
levels or the policy making level positions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am perplexed. You said you support the merit
selection and you didn't want to deal with those issues in the Foreign
Service format.
Mr. ARMILLA. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You also stated that this is one of the best educated
minorities in America, in fact even better educated on the whole than
the white population. So then my question becomes : If the merit sys-
tem is such a good idea that you don't want to comment on it but that
people are not making it to the top through that promotion system,
what is going on?
Mr. ARMILLA. To be frank with you, the promotion system does not
depend solely on merit. I think you have to show also how one adjusts
to the system as a whole, especially the hardships and the trials and
tribulations of the Foreign Service and on this basis the selection
boards would rank the persons, using their best subjective judgment.
Now in my opinion Asian Americans come out poorly because they
have not really belonged to the social networks. I mentioned a genera-
tional problem. They have to be part of social networks that exist'in
this country and so many of the Foreign Service officers who would
make the selections would probably use for their judgment information
on other groups rather than Asian Americans because they have more
experience with members of other minority groups or with the white
majority.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think the other groups have the same complaints
that you have; in other words, they are saying that it is really not a
merit system, it is an "old boy" network to some extent.
Mr. ARMILLA. Well, I think to go back to the text in my testimony,
there is this low-profile tradition of not speaking up all the time. You
have to be assertive in the Foreign Service because after all you
are interpreting, explaining foreign policy and dealing with foreign
peoples. This is a trait that I think the Asian Americans would have
to show more forcefully. On substantive issues, I think they do talk,
but in general, as I mentioned to you in the social networks that are re-
quired in the Foreign Service, you have to talk all the time, interact
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with them, in order to be recognized. But because of this low-profile
tradition, the Asian Americans are at a disadvantage.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Could you explain to me about how your amend-
ments are going to help the plight of Asian Americans in the foreign
affairs agencies?
Mr. ARMILLA. Yes. Very briefly we are interested in structural
change and this means that as a statutory mandate all management
and personnel people would have to follow the rules on equal em-
ployment opportunity really to the letter.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But they claim they are doing it now and we have
the statistics showing that minorities are not working there in signifi-
cant numbers. While that is going on, there has also been no real proof
that they are in violation of the equal employment provisions.
Mr. ARMILLA. I think we are appealing to the moral sense of the
management and personnel people and the law has that force. With-
out such moral force operating in the statute, people would just disre-
gard statements of policy about this. This is what we are saying in
our proposed amendments.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you think that the selection board procedure as
it stands right now helps or hinders minority groups?
Mr. ARMILLA. If the Foreign Service would have language similar
to what we are proposing, they would be improved. I think it is work-
ing in that these are professional and mature people. But there are
very few of us on. selection boards so we cannot really tell you whether
they are working or not.
To answer your question directly. we would say that the selection
board system should work better if they are operating under the
statutory mandate that we are proposing here because we believe that
the language of the law has moral force. The American people would
be affected by it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you know the percentage of Asian Americans
in the domestic population?
Mr. ARMILLA. Yes ; the 1970 census puts it at 1.1 percents
Mrs. SCHROEDER. One of the problems that we had in dealing with
the Hispanic portion of the population were that people from Spain
resented being coupled with people from Latin America who resented
being coupled with our people who had been here for 200 years and
were labeled Hispanic-they resented people coming in in the last
200 years. They saw themselves as more rative than many of the rest
of us that were here. Do you have that problem within the Asian
American population?
Mr. ARMTLLA. Yes, we do. As a matter of fact, some would prefer
not to be counted as Asian Americans. I think it is because in order
to show a disadvantaged group you have to proclaim your identity
and this is what we are doing. We define ourselves as a class, really, as
a group with a disadvantage problem. Some people feel that their
self-identity is not that of a disadvantaged group.
We actually follow the Federal definition, Madam Chairwoman, of
what an Asian American is. But it is a psychological definition we are
talking about in connection with Hispanics. It is really a. self-defini-
tion, self-identity, because that is the only way you can tell what the
person's ethnic group is.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Of the 1.1 percent that the Census Bureau found
in 1970, did they do anything on whether or not they were disad-
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vantaged in relation to the other minorities that they have been
talking about under the Equal Employment Act?
Mr. ARMILLA. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are there statistics on their level of being disad-
vantaged as compared to the majority community?
Mr. ARMsILLA. Yes. As a matter of fact, I would like to mention to
you the study of the Census Bureau on income and education. As I
mentioned to you, the Asian Americans have a high education com-
pletion rate but when you look at their income on the basis of educa-
tion there is quite a discrepancy. For example, among Chinese Amer-
icans, the actual income is about $4,000 less than what you might
expect from his education; among Japanese Americans, about $2,000
less than what you would expect his income level would be from his
education.
Both groups, by the way, are below the majority male income which
is about $15,000; the Japanese Americans, $14,000; Chinese Ameri-
cans, $12,000. So this discrepancy in income to us is an indicator that
despite their education they are not making money.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And those statistics were from the 1970 census
again ?
Mr. ARMILLA. No; it is a survey that they did in 1976 on income
and education. It is a sample survey.
Mrs. SCI-IROEDER. Well, I thank you all very much for appearing.
We appreciate your testimony and are glad to have it in the record
as we go through this incredible task of trying to make some sense
out of this whole area.
Thank you very much.
Mr. ARMILLA. It was a pleasure, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
The next panel that we have this morning are Mr. Walker and
Mr. Harrop.
Congressman Jim Leach could not be here but he sends a communi-
cation complimenting you and your testimony and saying how pleased
he was that you could be here today, so I would put that in the record
for him.
[The document referred to follows:]
STATEMENT BY HON. JIM LEACH ON TESTIMONY BY LANNON WALKER AND
WILLIAM HARROP
I would like to compliment Messrs. Harrop and Walker for their testimony.
The proposals they have presented today clearly reflect a great deal of careful
consideration and thought on how to insure that the Senior Foreign Service is
made up of the most capable officers recruited into the Foreign Service. These
proposals represent the work of an informal group of some of the best senior
officers presently in the Foreign Service. Messrs. Harrop and Walker are both
Deputy Assistant Secretaries in the Bureau of African Affairs and have served
in senior policy positions for some years. Their appearance here today is a
bureaucratically courageous act, demonstrating-without in any way hung dis-
loyal to the Department of State-the great importance which these senior
officers attach to the creation of the very best Foreign Service personnel system
as a result of the Foreign Service Act of 1979. Creative dissent and innovative
thinking such as displayed by these gentlemen is an essential characteristic of
the officer our Foreign Service needs to continue to attract, retain, and advan-
to the highest level.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. At this point we will be more than happy to have
you proceed.
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STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. HARROP, SENIOR FOREIGN SERVICE
OFFICER, AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN FOREIGN
SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Mr. HARROP. We have asked our colleague, FSO Frank McNeil, to
join us at the table here today. We would be glad to answer any ques-
tions that you may have after I highlight the statement.
Let me start by saying that the three of us are management officials
of the Department of State. We are what is called management offi-
cials under legislation. However, we are here to speak for ourselves
only. We each have had about a quarter of a century of experience
in this business and have concern for the U.S. diplomatic service and
for the best possible representation of American interests overseas.
We have discussed our views among -a group of leaders of the Foreign
Service with whom we have been reviewing these questions for some
time.
Secretary Vance has worked very hard on this proposed legislation.
We agree with him that the time has come for a 'fundamental reform
of the Foreign Service and we support the congressional action in
this session on a reform of the Foreign Service.
However, the bill that we are reviewing we feel needs improvement
in some key respects. We hope it will be strengthened during the
process of congressional consideration. The bureaucratic process under
which a bill of this nature develops tends to dilute a lot of the edge
of the proposals and we think that has occurred in this case.
The Secretary sought a wide range of views in preparing this bill.
He in fact consulted on several occasions with our group and made
sure that our concerns received a fair hearing in the process of devel-
oping the legislation. He also worked with leaders of other foreign
affairs agencies who contributed to the effort.
The result of all this work as reflected in the bill under considera-
tion we think has much to commend it. It includes a rationalization
of the Foreign Service personnel categories and salary schedules; a
statutory basis for employee-management relations in the Foreign
Service ; a return to a single legislative authority for the Foreign
Service: a clean distinction between Foreign Service and civil service
employment; and the establishment of a Senior Foreign Service.
We support each of these initiatives because we believe they will
contribute to a stronger and more excellent Foreign Service of the
United States. At the same time, we have significant reservations
concerning the parts of the bill which deal with the Senior Foreign
Service.
To show why we think the proper establishment of the Senior For-
eign Service is so important, I would like to briefly review the major
goals of reform efforts over the years aimed at the Foreign Service
personnel system. As you know, the Foreign Service or diplomacy is
really a question of people, it is the only resource, that we have so that
we are in really a continual process of reviewing our organization and
trying to improve and make more excellent our ability to carry out the
national interest. The main objectives of these reforms have been:
First, to demonstrate the need for a Foreign Service personnel sys-
tem separate from the civil service.
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Second, to assure that the Foreign Service serves the national in-
terest and not just parochial agency interests of individual agencies;
that is to say, a single Foreign Service of the United States.
Third, to demonstrate how the Foreign Service, which has so many
individual performers-people well qualified in geographic or func-
tional areas-can produce from this body of experts the required
number of across-the-board executive managers. This is the classic
debate between generalists and specialists in personnel systems.
Fourth, to assure rational recruitment and promotion opportunities
so that the Nation's best talent will choose the Foreign Service as a
career. This often comes down to the notion of "up or out"; in other
words, 'by what process will people leave the service so as to make
room for others to move up.
A look at today's problems in the Foreign Service I think will show
that these historical objects of reform remain the very basis of our
problems. We have separate Foreign Service personnel systems run-
ning out of each of the foreign affairs agencies. This means that we
fail to use the professional talent available because of petty agency
rivalries; the authority of the Ambassador is undermined;* it is ex-
traordinarily difficult to form executive leaders capable of managing
policy and resources across agency lines; and the existence of dupli-
cate systems is costly and inefficient.
In this connection we are particularly concerned by the proposals
to transfer important functional areas of commercial and economic
work to the Department of Commerce. We think this makes very
little sense and would further confuse the ability of people overseas
to represent our national, interests there. We think that would be a
very serious mistake.
We have too many officers in jobs which are not truly senior posi-
tions. Too few of our senior officers can lay claim to either profound
expertise or to broad executive talent. As a result, the pool. from which
the key jobs are filled is, in fact, too small-in spite of the surplus of
senior officers.
At the same time, the surplus of senior officers has been irreducible
due to the lack of a vigorous egress mechanism. As a result, promotion
rates have slowed drastically, recruitment efforts have been erratic,
career development plans subverted-in brief, the system is in crisis.
The bill under consideration has dealt effectively with the confusion
between civil service and Foreign Service by eliminating the "do-
mestic" Foreign Service category-a reform long overdue. But the
bill does not deal with the other key objectives of reform in a satisfac-
tory way. In fact, by establishing the Senior Foreign Service in ways
which are not clearly enough defined, the bill could actually work
against the reform goals. For example :
By not creating a single Senior Foreign Service for all of the agen-
cies authorized to use'
se the Foreign Service personnel system, the
proposed bill runs the serious risk of seeing each establish its own cri-
teria, for promotions, career development, training, and recruitment.
As a result, we might see one senior executive service but two or
three de facto Senior Foreign Services in a much smaller pool of
people.
By not clearly defining the difference between the current senior
officer corps and the new Senior Foreign Service and by not clearly
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distinguishing between senior executives and senior specialists, the
bill tends to replicate past confusions which he at the heart of our
current problems in this area.
Finally, by choosing the current mechanism of the time-in-class as
it key egress tool, the bill raises the obvious question as to why time-
in-class should work in the future when it has not worked in the past.
I would like to look quickly at each of these questions in more detail.
One. Whether the act should establish a single Senior Foreign
Service.
The authors of the bill say they agree with us that there should be
a single Senior Foreign Service for all foreign affairs agencies but feel
that the current draft reflects as much movement toward uniformity
among agencies as bureaucratic politics will allow.
We believe that the objections raised by the various agencies can
be overcome and that the principle of a single Senior Foreign Service
is something the Congress would want to see implanted in the national
interest. The single legislative authority for the Foreign Service per-
sonnel system will be undermined ab initio if it is not made clear that
there is only one Senior Foreign Service operating under uniform rules
for the foreign affairs agencies.
The various agencies can use "compatible" systems up to the senior
threshold because the existence of a single Senior Foreign Service
thereafter will force sufficient congruence over time in career develop-
ment programs, promotion standards, evaluation procedures, assign-
ment interchanges, and training. Without a single Senior Foreign
Service to act as a powerful magnet drawing up the best from all agen-
cies, the various personnel systems will remain--indeed retreat fur-
ther-behind agency walls.
Two. Whether the act should define the Senior Foreign Service as
being composed both of officers who have demonstrated policy and ex-
ecutive leadership abilities and of those who have the kinds of highly
developed functional and area expertise required at the top ranks.
While the language of the bill, taking criticism into. account, was
changed to read that selection boards looking at Senior Foreign Service
officers would address executive leadership ability and/or functional
or area expertise, the bill does not make clear that executive and spe-
cialists must be trained and assigned differently.
The authors of the bill are concerned that such distinctions could
lead to invidious comparisons-an "elite" category and a "second
class" category-and so break down the consensus that now exists.on
the idea of a Senior Foreign Service. We do not agree.
We believe that without such clear definition of career patterns the
Senior Foreign Service will persist in the confusion which now exists
in the top ranks. Precisely because the Service now assumes that the
senior officer is both a specialist and an executive leader-by virtue
of the fact that he is a senior officer-we have insufficient numbers of
both specialists and executives and perhaps too many officers who are
neither. We should accept the need-and the hard work required-
to evolve separate career development patterns for specialists and for
executives.
Three. Whether the act should establish a 3-year limited renewable
appointment as the key egress mechanism for the Senior Foreign
Service.
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337
The authors of the bill agree with the wisdom of moving to the lim-
ited renewable appointment as soon as possible, but want to use time-
in-class initially, both for converting current senior officers and for
promotions into the Senior Foreign Service. They do not wish to spec-
ify the length of time-in-class or the renewable appointment in the bill,
preferring to leave this to the Secretary's discretion under subsequent
regulation. Lastly, the authors wish to maintain other current egress
mechanisms, selection out and mandatory retirement for age-both of
which have been found wanting in the past.
We believe strongly that unless the egress mechanism for the Senior
Foreign Service is fundamentally reformed we will soon fall back
into the mistakes of the past which have resulted in a persistent sur-
plus of senior officers, and consequent blockage of the entire system.
We believe that a system of 3-year renewable appointments can pro-
vide the fundamental reform the system requires. It must be made
clear that the decisions as to how many appointments will be renewed
in a given year will be based solely on the requirements for steady
flow of talent from bottom to top. Each year a given percentage of
appointments of those senior officers ranked at the lower end of the
scale by a board of peers would not be renewed in order to make way
for recruitment and promotions.
But whatever system is adopted under the authorities provided by
a new Foreign Service Act, it must be based on a personnel model
which articulates the desired flow. We can no longer afford the luxury
of resolving some particular problem-"too few political officers,"
"let's promote more administrative officers this year to encourage peo-
ple into the cone," "we must appoint more minority candidates," "we
must hire a dozen Farsi speakers," et cetera-without understanding
what the implications of such increased appointments would be upon
the overall system.
We must have a model which enables us to predict rates of recruit-
ment, promotion and retirement on which to base a rational diplomatic
service. We need to know what effect it will have on the overall struc-
ture. The lack of a realistic personnel model, which requires computer
modeling to deal with the dynamics over time of the many variables,
has been at the root of the Department's poor personnel decisions. Be-
fore the Congress passes a new act, such a model must be constructed,
subjected to informed scrutiny, and made part of the legislative his-
tory in order to prevent future managers from ad hoc tinkering with
the system.
We have had too much tinkering with the personnel system persist-
ently year after year. New ideas come up, small changes are made, large
changes are made and the overall structure becomes very much of a
Rube Goldberg model, without the coherent need to carry out our
diplomacy properly.
With the intention of making a constructive contribution to resolv-
ing this complex problem, we have developed a model of personnel
flow in the Foreign Service which the committees will find as an an-
nex to our testimony.
I would be pleased to go into this and other questions in more detail.
Madam Chairman, it has been said that in the implementation of
the bill under consideration the concerns we discuss above can and
will be met. Under the provisions which call for compatibility among
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the agencies, progress could be made toward uniformity and toward
recreating a single Foreign Service of the United States. The wording
of the bill, it is said, permits the establishment of a Senior Foreign
Service made up both of true executives and of highly qualified specia-
lists. And the bill provides for several egress mechanisms, including
limited career extensions which could apply to the bulk of the Senior
Foreign Service and permit the development of a rational rate of ca-
reer flow.
We would like to believe that this could happen and our skepticism,
which I am sorry does exist, is in no way a lack of confidence in the
Secretary or in his senior advisors but we know that the current man-
agement will be replaced under our political system and that each gen-
eration of leadership will always be observed by policy demands rather
than administrative problems.
We cannot expect Secretaries of State or deputies to be able to af-
ford the amount of time that in many ways is required by the man-
agement of this personnel system. For that reason we feel strongly
that the legislation and the legislative record of that legislation should
itself provide a very clear model for future implementation.
The history of the Foreign Service since 1946, and of our experience
with reform, teaches us that, unless the law is specific and the Congress
keeps close watch, agency managers will succumb to the inevitable
pressures to keep people on beyond their time, to proliferate Foreign
Service personnel systems and to avoid the hard work of forming both
executives and specialists.
Our written testimony gives detailed recommendations aimed at
each of these problem areas. In brief, we believe that either the law or
the legislative history should make clear that it is the intent of Con-
gress to :
Provide for the establishment of a single Senior Foreign Service,
the personnel of which will be characterized by either outstanding
senior executive management abilities or outstanding functional or
specialized expertise?
Assure that personnel will serve in the Senior Foreign Service only
under appointments limited in time and on the basis of sustained high
performance.
Clearly see to it that the decision as to how many appointments will
be renewed in a given year will be based solely on the requirements
for:
A predictable flow of recruitment at the bottom of the Foreign
Service ;
Regular promotion opportunities;
Career development patterns, which include retirement projections,
including honorable retirement for a substantial number of officers at
the new class FS-1;
The needs of the Service in terms of executive abilities or functional
or area expertise, and the available positions and requirements to get
the work done ;
Insist that the management of the Foreign Service construct and use
a personnel model in order that the required flows of talent and ex-
pertise can be identified and maintained;
To establish an Office of Foreign Service Personnel Management,
headed by the Director General under the Secretary's authority and
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supervision, whose tasks it would be to manage the Senior Foreign
Service of the foreign affairs agencies and to work toward compatibi-
lity and consolidation of Foreign Service personnel functions, across
agency lines, for personnel in the junior and midcareer ranks as they
work upward toward what we feel very strongly should be a single
Senior Foreign Service.
In conclusion, Madam Chairman, we would like to congratulate the
senior management of the Department of State, AID and ICA for the
excellent and constructive work they have done preparing this bill. We
believe that there should be a Foreign Service Act of 1979 and we urge
the Congres to pass such legislation, taking account of the suggestions
we have made to improve the bill.
[The joint prepared statement of Messrs. Harrop and Walker and
attachments follow:]
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JOINT PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. HARROP AND LANNON WALKER, SENIOR
FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS AND FORMER PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN FOREIGN
SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Secretary Vance has devoted an extraordinary amount,
of time to the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979.
We, like the Secretary, are convinced that the moment
for fundamental reform of the Foreign Service is now
and that this proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 is
needed to institute these reforms. In certain key
respects, the Act doesn't go far enough and, if
not strengthened during the process of Congressional
consideration, it will fail to achieve its essential
goals.
The Secretary has sought a wide range of views,
including our own, as he forged what has been called a
"careful consensus among divergent interests." So too,
the heads of other intersted agencies and key managers
across the foreign affairs community have devoted
remarkable energy to the Executive Branch's first major
initiative in Foreign Service personnel reform since the
mid-sixties. And the results, as reflected in the bill
under consideration, have much to commend them:
-- A rationalization of foreign service personnel
categories and salary schedules
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-- A statutory basis for employee-management
relations in the Foreign Service
-- A return to a single legislative
for the Foreign Service
-- A clear distinction between Foreign Service
and Civil Service employment
-- And the establishment of a Senior Foreign
Service.
We support each of these initiatives because we
believe they will contribute to a stronger and more
excellent Foreign Service of the United States. At
the same time, we have significant reservations
concerning the parts of the bill which deal with the
Senior Foreign Service.
To show why we consider the proper establishment
of the Senior Foreign Service to be so important, it
is necessary to review briefly the major goals of the
reform efforts which have been aimed at the Foreign
Service personnel system over the years. These have
been --
1. To demonstrate the need for a separate Foreign
Service personnel system (Foreign Service vs
Civil Service)
2. To assure that the Foreign Service serves
the national interest and not just parochial
agency interests (A single Foreign Service
of the United States v. disparate agency services.
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3. To demonstrate how the Foreign Service, which
has so many individual performers -- i.e.,
highly qualified geographic or functional
specialists -- can produce from this body of
experts the required number of across-the-
board executive managers (Generalists v
Specialists).
4. To assure rational recruitment and promotion
opportunities so that the nation's best talent
will choose the Foreign Service as a career
(the notion of "up or out" which is made to
work, or not work, by the Service's egress
mechanism).
We have only to ldok at today's crises in the
Foreign Service to see that these historical objects
of reform remain at the heart of our problems:
Separate Foreign Service personnel systems
run out of each of the major foreign affairs
agencies means that we fail to use the pro-
fessional talent available because of petty
agency rivalries; the authority of the
Ambassador is undermined; it is extraordinarily
difficult to form executive leaders capable
of managing policy and resources across agency
lines; and the existence of duplicate systems
is costly and inefficient.
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-- We have too many officers in jobs which are
not truly senior positions. Too few of our
senior officers can lay claim to either
profound expertise or to broad executive talent.
As a result, the pool from which the key jobs
are filled is, in fact, too small -- in spite,
of the surplus of senior officers.
-- At the same time, the surplus of senior officers
has been irreducible due to the lack of a
vigorous egress mechanism. As a result,
promotion rates have slowed drastically,
recruitment efforts have been erratic, career
development plans subverted -- in brief the
system is in crisis.
The bill under consideration has dealt effectively
with the confusion between Civil Service and Foreign
Service by eliminating the "domestic" Foreign Service
categoy -- a reform long overdue. But the bill does
not deal with the other key objects of reform in a
satisfactory way. In fact, by establishing the Senior
Foreign Service in ways which are not clearly enough
defined -- the bill could actually work against the
reform goals. For example,
-- by not creating a single Senior Foreign Service
for all of the agencies authorized to use the
Foreign Service personnel system, the proposed
bill runs the serious risk of seeing each
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344
establish its own criteria for promotions,
career development, training and recruitment.
As a result, we might see one Senior Executive
Service but two or three de facto Senior
Foreign Services.
-- by not clearly defining the difference between
the current senior officer corps and the new
Senior Foreign Service and by not clearly
distinguishing between senior executives and
senior specialists the bill tends to replicate
past confusions which lie at the heart of our
current problems.
-- and by choosing the current mechanism of time-
in-class as a key egress tool, the bill raises
the obvious question as to why time-in-class
should work in the future when it has not worked
in the past.
X X X
Let us look at each of these three questions in more
detail
1. Whether the Act should establish a Single Senior
Foreign Service
The authors of the bill say they agree with us
that there should be a single Senior Foreign Service
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for all Foreign Affairs agencies but feel that the
current draft reflects as much movement toward uniformity
amongst agencies as bureaucratic politics will allow.
We believe that the objections raised by the various
agencies can be overcome and that the principle of a
single Senior Foreign Service is something the Congress
would want to see implemented in the national interest.
The single legislative authority for the Foreign Service
personnel system will be undermined ab initio if it is
not made clear that there is only is only one Senior
Foreign Service operating under uniform rules for the
foreign affairs agencies.
The various agencies can use "compatible" systems
up to the senior threshold because the existence of a
single Senior Foreign Service thereafter will force
sufficient congruence over time in career development
programs, promotion standards, evaluation procedures,
assignment interchanges and training. Without a single
Senior Foreign Service to act as a powerful magnet drawing
up the best from all agencies, the various personnel
systems will remain--indeed retreat further--behind
agency walls.
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2. Whether the Act should define the Senior Foreign
Service as being composed both of officers who have
demonstrated policy and executive leadership abilities
and of those who have the kinds of highly developed
functional and area expertise required at the top ranks.
While. the language of the bill, taking into criticism
into account, was changed to read that selection boards
looking at Senior Foreign Service officers would address
executive leadership ability and/or functional or area
expertise -- the bill does not make clear that executive
and specialists must be trained and assigned differently.
The authors of the bill are concerned that such
distinctions could lead to invidious comparisons -- an
"elite" category and a "second class" category -- and so
break down the consensus that now exists on the idea of
a Senior Foreign Service. We do riotagree.
We believe that without such clear definition of
career patterns the Senior Foreign Service will persist
in the confusion which now exists in the top ranks.
Precisely because the Service now assumes, that the
senior officer is both a specialist and an executive
leader -- by virtue of the fact that he is a senior
officer -- we have insufficient numbers of both specialists
and executives -- and perhaps too many officers who are
neither. We should accept the need -- and the hard work
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347
required - to evolve separate career development patterns
for specialists and for executives. To blur this
important difference and to blanket-in to the Senior
Foreign Service all current senior officers without
regard for their qualifications as either specialists
or executives is unfair to the rest of the Service,
and indeed to the national interest.
3. Whether the Act should establish a three-year limited
renewable appointment as the key egress mechanism for the
Senior Foreign Service.
The authors of the bill agree with the wisdom of
moving to the limited renewable appointment as soon as
possible, but want to use time-in class initially, both
for converting current senior officers and for promotions
into the Senior Foreign Service. They do not wish to
specify the length of time-in-class or the renewable
appointment in the bill, preferring to leave this to the
Secretary's discretion under subsequent regulation.
Lastly, the authors wish to maintain other current egress
mechanisms, selection out and mandatory retirement for
age--both of which have been found wanting.
We believe strongly that unless the egress mechanism
for the Senior Foreign Service is fundamentally reformed
we will soon fall back into the mistakes of the past which
have resulted in a persistent surplus of senior officers,
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and consequent blockage of the.Pntire system. We
believe that a system of three year renewable appoint-
ments can provide the fundamental reform the system
requires. It must be made clear that the decisions as
to how many appointments will be renewed in a given
year will be based solely on the requirements for
steady flow of talent from bottom to top. Each year a
given percentage of appointments of those senior officers
ranked at the lower end of the scale by a board of peers
would not be renewed in order to make way for recruitment
and promotions.
But whatever system is adopted under the authorities
provided by a new Foreign Service Act it must be based
on a personnel model which articulates the desired flow.
We can no longer afford the luxury of resolving some
particular problem -- "too few political officers",
"let's promote more administrative officers this year to
encourage people into the cone." "we must appoint more
minority candidates," "we must hire a dozen Farsee speakers",
etc. -- without understanding and planning in advance
its impact upon our overall personnel flow.
We need predictable rates of recruitment, promotion
and retirement on which to base a rational diplomatic service.
The lack of a realistic personnel model, which requires
computer modeling to deal with the dynamics over time
of the many variables, has been at the root
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349
of the Department's poor personnel decisions. Before
the Congress passes a new Act, such a model must be
constructed, subjected to informed scrutiny, and
made part of the legislative history in order to
prevent future managers from ad hoc tinkering with
the system.
With the intention of making a constructive
contribution to resolving this complex problem, we
have developed a model of personnel flow in the Foreign
Service which the Committees will find as a annex to
our testimony.
We would be pleased to go into each of these
questions in more detail.
X X X
Mr. Chairman, it has been said that in the
implementation of the bill under consideration the
concerns we discuss above can and will be met. Under
the provisions which call for compatibility among the
agencies, progress could be made toward uniformity
and toward recreating a single Foreign Service of the
United States. The wording of the bill, it is said,
permits the establishment of a Senior Foreign Service
made up both of true executives and of highly qualified
specialists. And the bill provides for several egress
mechanisms, including limited career extensions which
could apply to the bulk of the Senior Foreign Service
and permit the development of a rational rate of career
flow.
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350
We would like to believe, and our skepticism is in
no way a lack of confidence in the Secretary or his
senior advisors. But we know that the current management
will be replaced and that each generation of leadership
will be absorbed by policy rather than administrative
problems.
The history of the Foreign Service since 1946,
and of our experience with reform, teaches us that,
unless the law is specific and the Congress keeps close
watch, agency managers will succumb to the inevitable
pressures to keep people on beyond their time, to
proliferate foreign service personnel systems and to
avoid the hard work of forming both executives and
specialists.
To repeat, we believe that either the law or the
legislative history should make clear that it is the
intent of Congress to:
-- provide for the establishment of a single
Senior Foreign Service, the personnel of
which will be characterized by either outstanding
senior executive management abilities or
outstanding functional or specialized expertise
-- assure that personnel will serve in the Senior
Foreign Service only under appointments limited
in time and on the basis of sustained high
performance.
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351
see to it that the decision as to how many
appointments will be renewed in a given year
will be based solely on the requirements for:
- a predictable flow of recruitment at
the bottom of the Foreign Service
- regular promotion opportunities
- career development patterns, which
include retirement projections,
including honorable retirement for
a substantial number of officers
at the new class FS-1
- the needs of the Service in terms of
executive abilities or functional
or area expertise
- and available positions.
insist that the management of the Foreign Service
construct and use a personnel model in order
that the required flows of talent and expertise
can be identified and maintained.
and lastly, to establish an Office''of Foreign
Service Personnel Management, headed by
the Director General under the Secretary's
authority and supervision, whose tasks it
would be to manage the Senior Foreign Service
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352
of the foreign affairs agencies and to work
toward oatpatibility and consolidation of
Foreign Service personnel functions, across
agency lines, for personnel in the junior
and mid-career ranks.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we would like to
congratulate the senior management of the Department
of State, AID and ICA for the excellent and constructive
work they have done preparing this bill. We believe
that there should be a Foreign Service Act of 1979.
We urge the Congress to pass such legislation taking
account of the suggestions we have made to improve
the bill.
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353
THE FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER SYSTEM
The data shows conclusively that the lack of system-
atic operation of the Foreign Service Officer Personnel
System is at the root of the troubles which have af-
flicted the system and harmed the Foreign Service's
ability to do the work which the nation requires of it.
The proposed legislation provides crucial new authorities
for operating the system but, like the existing legisla-
tion, does not prescribe how to operate it. Whatever the
final shape of the Act, if it is to achieve its promise,
it should incorporate the requirement for an operating
model in the legislation and set forth the parameters of
that model in the legislative record.
The dismal historical record, illustrated with
tables and roller-coaster graphs of the
promotion and junior entry rates.
A brief list of some ad hoc decisions that
led to this sorry state of affairs.
A basic model of the Foreign Service Officer
Personnel System.
An illustrative notion of how to operate this
model to produce a rational system, a task
that in the final analysis must involve
running the model on a dynamic computer
program.
The Historical Record (The Roller Coaster Model)
The record of the past 15 years suggests that for
the most part the Foreign Service Officer Personnel
System could not have been run worse had our successive
sets of transient personnel managers aimed at chaos.
They of course did not, but it happened anyway, a
result of perennial improvisation and ad hoc decisions;
Many decisions were taken for worthy reasons. None were
taken with much calculation of their effects on the total
system. This paper deals with the Foreign Service
Officer system, but the general judgement applies to the
operation of the Foreign Service Staff Corps, often the
hostage of changing, inconsistent policies.
-- Junior Entry Rates
While the recent record of junior entries at
the bottom of the career shows nothing so bad as the
McCarthy - era lunacy of refusing to hire any junior
officers in a particular year, the data available,
which covers nine years, is most disturbing. Wide swings
deprived us, in the lean years, as Undersecretary Read
said, of "excellent and most promising younger persons"
from particular college generations.
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
117
85
152
144
200
214
224
168
180 (projected)
Range 85 - 224
Mean 164.9
Standard Deviation 45.6
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230
220
210
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
354
Junior Level Entry Graph
1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979
The Promotion Record
The record of the past 15?fiscal years (1964-1978)
shows even more sharp :swings in the rates.
8 of Class Promoted
Low
High
Mean
Standard
Deviatio
FSO
2
to
1
3.2%
17.9%
10.2
4.3
FSO
3
to
2
3.2%
13.5%
9.2
2.7
FSO
4
to
3
3.1%
16.6%
12.6
3.6
FSO
5
to
4
2.2%
31.1%
20.8
6.5
FSO
6
to
5
10%
59.8%
36.4
13.6
FSO
7
to
6
24.6%
84.5%
54.9
17.7
FSO
8
to
7
32%
90%
64.1
17.8
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PP.OMOTION GRAPHS
67 65 71 73 75 77 13
F15CAl. 'i M.-C-'
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69 71. 73 75 77 73
FLSC4L- ysa2
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C9 ZI Z3 ZS
fsoy 'TO 3.
-moo ~O
F-50 3 TO 2
lg 77 73
6 65 47 69 71 i3
F tBGAI YEA2
FSO P2OM0 ~tUNS
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358
The effects are easy to judge. Too low entry rates
deprive us of excellent prospects and soon lead to
shortages of younger mid-career officers, today particu-
larly evident in the political area and consequently in
potential hard language officers. Too high entry rates a
few years later clog up the middle ranks and push junior
entry rates off the cliff again.
Similarly, wide swings in promotion rates harm the
national interest in a steady flow of talent upward
through the system and are simply unfair to numbers of
fine officers. Since all of this seems altogether too
obvious, why did it happen? In essence, personnel
decision makers apparently never understood the Foreign
Service Officer System resembled an econometric model in
which a decision to alter any factor ( a "variable" in
the jargon) inevitably changes, immediately and over
time, the other factors.
The Foreign Service is a competitive, rank-in-man
system. At all above the junior officer level (the
junior "threshold") the number of promotion opportunities
depends directly upon the number of vacancies for the
next higher level.
By way of illustration, when ten of our Senior FSO-1
colleagues retire, that creates a "cascade" of 10 promo-
tion opportunities all the way to FSO-6, a total of 50
positions. Similarly, when five officers are brought in
from the outside at the FSO-3 level, that breaks the
"cascade" and subtracts five opportunities from those
that would have been otherwise available. at each rank
below, diminishing the number of promotions by 15.
('Junior officers, who enter the Foreign Service at either
FSO-8, 7 or 6, are treated as a group so that the "cas-
cade" does not operate below promotions from FSO-6 to
FSO-5.)
There are a number of ways to enter and leave the
service, listed in the model set out later in these
pages. Some are actuarial (e.g., age 60 retirements)
but a number of ingress and egress variables are manage-
rially determined, and a decision on any of them affects
the whole system. A full data base is still lacking. And
to this date there is no sophisticated computer run model
in place that would calculate these effects and permit
management to make rational decisions. To the credit of
the current managers, they are contracting for such a
model, we understand.
An illustrative list of these largely uncalculated
decisions, some one time, affairs, others almost annual
phenomena, follows:
The annual decisions on junior entry rates,
sometimes set by Kentucky windage.
The perennial unwillingness to use any of the
existing authorities (e.g., Section 519) to
force out senior officers to make room at the
top.
The decision to extend Senior Officer time-in-
class to 22 years, which hung a virtual no
vacancy sign at the top ranks.
-- The inability to use low ranking to retire or
select out officers.
The yearly ad hoc decisions on the total
number of lateral entries at mid-career and
senior levels, which limit promotion rates
below.
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-- The indecision on whether to make the junior
threshold a real test.
The inflexible utilization of the cone system,
first conceived as a device to assist career
development and professional training, to
disadvantage first one cone and then another
in promotion rates and prevent rational
management of talent flows into and up
through the service.
-- The patchwork quilt of current FS systems,
such as the FSRU category.
No one set of managers was responsible for this
state of affairs. But the interaction of their succes-
sive decisions has produced a malaise which affects our
ability to properly carry on the nation's diplomatic
work. This led the Secretary and his personnel managers
to the necessary decision to seek wide-ranging reform.
The authorities in the Department's proposal, however, do
not address the crucial technical issues which can only
be addressed by systematic modeling of the personnel
system.
A NOTE ON LATERAL ENTRY
We have no yearly statistics on lateral entry,
but experience suggests that "outside hires" into the
Foreign Service above the junior level have been subject
to the same ad hoc decision-making that -affects other
elements of the personnel system. -Consequently, any
graph would likely also resemble a roller coaster.
Under the current patchwork system of FSO, FSR, FSS, and
FSRU5 of various kinds, which the new -law would correct,
the Department regularly hires significant number of
specialists above the junior level. These are not
particularly at issue, but certain statistics on gener-
alist outside hires for the 1973-78 period are important.
-- The Department hired 196 FSRS and FSRUs, an
average of 39 per year into generalist admini-
strative, consular, economic, political and
program direction positions.
-- More than a quarter of these, 54, were hired
at the senior (R-1, R-2) level, an average of 11
per year. In the personnel system, these offi-
cers are treated as FSOs, and the senior hires
alone blocked a "cascade" of 240 promotion
opportunities, an average of 48 per year at all
ranks.
-- 25 of the 51 consular officers were hired at
mid-level, despite the "surplus" of mid-level
consular officers over jobs and 62 of the 72
political officers hired were at mid or senior
levels, despite the surplus of political offi-
cers, particularly restricting promotion and
bottom-entry opportunities in these two cones.
Some of these generalist hires were made on af-
firmative action grounds, with which there can be no
argument, but most were not.
THE FOREIGN SERVICE PERSONNEL SYSTEM MODEL
The model on the following page describes rather
precisely the factors (variables) at play in the system.
With the exception of the Limited Career Renewable Exten-
sion, all these factors have operated under the current
system, with the strange results described earlier.
Unless a precise model is consciously and scientifically
used to produce rational system-wide plans, it is not
likely the new act will produce the results set forth in
the findings section of the Bill.
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Foreign Service Officer Personnel System
(Flow Model)
The flow model on the next page illustrates the
dynamics, at the junior, mid-career and senior levels, of
the inter-action among the basic_ ways of entering and
leaving the Foreign Service (the egress and ingress
variables shown in the model on the preceding page).
Among other things, the flow model shows graphically:
- - Promotions are, at one and the same time,
egress and ingress variables, since a promotion
into a class creates a promotion opportunity
(vacancy) in the class below.
A promotion opportunity can be filled in
only two ways, by promotion or by lateral entry
(outside hire).
Lateral entry involves an opportunity cost,
the denial of a promotion at each rank below
the lateral entry (the "cascade").
The mechanics of the system are value free, except
for the requirements that ingress must not exceed egress
so long as service size remains constant and that ingress
into a class class depends on the number of vacancies in
positions in that class. Value judgements, conscious or
otherwise come when management makes decisions on the key
variables, e.g. sets the length of time-in-class for
Senior Officers or, under the new authorities, the number
of limited appointments for the Senior Foreign Sevice
that will not be renewed.
THE EGRESS MODEL
The final slice of the model that requires analysis
before dealing with the issue of how to rationally
operate it is that which deals with egress, particularly
at the senior ranks. The historical record for 1971-1977
(the years for which the most complete data is available)
shows the usual roller-coaster. In 1976, both senior
egress and egress across the system dropped sharply, a
tip off that lower promotion and entry rates were ahead.
SENIOR ATTRITION (CM,FSO-1,2)
Year 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
Egress 39 56 83 113 79 59 67
-- Average - 71
SYSTEM ATTRITION
Year 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
114 136 175 209 189 158 178
-- Average - 166
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362
FLOW MODEL (New Law)
(Total Size: 3750 (?)
(INGRESS
(Actuarial-age 60,
Time-in-Class,etu.)
Note: The numbers are purely illustrative, drawn from
the Department's presentation to the Congress and
current work force figures. Over the past 15 years
the size of the FSO Corps has varied from a high of
3733 in 1965, to a low of 3037 in 1973, with a mean
of 3343. The swing reflects not only Vietnam but
management's customary confusion over certain kinds
of specialists, sometimes in and sometimes out of
the FSO Corps.
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363
EGRESS PROJECTIONS
The historical record, shown on the preceding page,
has not been enough to sustain either decent entry or
decent promotion rates. What about the future? Here
projections, based on actuarial data under the current
law, vary. But even without taking into account some
essential caveats, they do not offer much hope that the
Foreign Service could stumble into a better system.
They suggest a more even, but nonetheless declining
attrition rate over the next five to ten years, lower in
fact than the unsatisfactory averages of the past.
-- An estimated decline in attrition at the Senior
Level from around 100 in FY 80 to around 70 in
FY84 and perhaps beyond.
-- An estimated decline across the system from
around 170 in FY 80 to around 150 in FY84 and'
beyound.
Should there be a continuation of the Departments
propensity to ad hoc personnel decisions, one can be
assured of continued fluctuations in the egress rates.
Moreover, individual retirement decisions, which contri-
bute to fluctuations, respond to outside influences;
particularly executive pay raises, inflation, and of
course any change in the age 60 retirement. Executive
pay raises keep senior officers in, while inflation
drives them out (sometimes the best ones).
This is not an argument either for inflation or
against executive pay raises, but rather for a system
that assures constant outflow at the top, regardless of
individual retirement decisions.
THE OPERATING MODEL
The data and descriptive models of the personnel
system laid out earlier provide unassailable evidence
that:
Neither the old act nor the new act actually set
up a personnel system, only the framework for
it. Contrary to the wishes of the framers of the
new act, successive sets of transient managers
could operate the system just as badly as in the
past.
The next phase must be to lay out now the operat-
ing model of the system on the table, to subject
it to informed scrutiny in the course of con-
sideration of this legislation, and to incor-
porate it in its refined form in the Legislative
history n order to inhibit future managers from
ad hoc tinkering that subverts the intent of the
Administration and Congress.
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364
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE OPERATING MODEL
1. Computer Modeling
A sophisticated computer program would permit
dynamic modeling of precisely calculated effects of
changes in any variables upon all the other factors,
not only for the next year, but over time. For example,
what happens to other elements of the system when manage-
ment tentatively sets a goal of 160 entrants at the
bottom of the career ladder? What is needed, in effect,
is a rolling five to ten year projection.
2. Consciously Set Priorities and Adhere to Them
The system has to balance, whether you set priori-
ties or let it run by itself, but if left to its own
devices it will follow Rube Goldberg. For example, we
have seen from past and projected attrition data that not
enough senior officers leave soon enough, helping produce
arteriosclerotic promotion flows and anemic bottom entry
rates. What is needed is to decide that some variables
(e.g. entry and promotion rates) are more important than
others and that the others (e.g. senior egress and
lateral entry) should be controlled to produce the
desired rates for the most important factors.
This notion runs counter to the customs of ad hoc
decision-making, including the more sophisticated ration-
ale that all factors are important and management must
have the flexibility to make continuous adjustments. In
fact, the need for continuous adjustment is a character-
istic effect of the lack of rational personnel planning.
3. Level Off The Roller Coaster
No system can produce the desired flow of talent
into the system, up through it, and out of it, if it
continues to produce the sharp up and down rates of
the past. What is required, under the rolling projec-
tion, is to squirrel away promotions and bottom entries
during fat years for use during lean years. In this way,
ingress does not exceed egress over time, even though in
some years more people enter than leave and in other
years more leave than enter. In dealing with the wind-
fall departure after the Supreme Court decision of a
number of officers who were over sixty, management very
sensibly plans to distribute ,this windfall over the next
five years.
4. Set Explicit Target Ranges for Ingress and Egress
In leveling off the roller coaster, one can then set
target ranges for ingress and egress (e.g. a bottom
entry rate of no less than 160 junior officers nor
no less than 180 per year.) In this way management
has sufficient flexibility to make adjustments in a
particular year without destroying the rational operation
of the system. (The preferred approach here is to start
by using the mathematical device of the standard devia-
tion.)
AN.,ILLUSTRATIVE NOTION OF HOW TO RUN THE MODEL
What follows has no pretensions of scientific
accuracy, but does have the virtue of systematic approach
to the data. The results, while not precise, are square-
ly based on the data. If one sets priorities the way we
advocate they be set, the actual results of a computer
run model might be quite close to these projections.
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Step 1 Decide the size of the Foreign Service Officer
Gor s
While we use the 3,750 figure, set forth by manage-
ment's estimate in its presentation about the Foreign
Service Act, the final decision depends on the definition
given to Specialists and Generalists and upon the number
of current FSOS who transfer to Civil Service because, in
fact, they are not people who look to a career overseas
as well as in Washington. (Even so, since the results of
our modeling of promotion ranges are given in per-
centages, changes in the size of the service should not
have much effect.)
Step 2 Set priorities Among the Factors
We give priority (by setting desirable ranges based
on the standard deviation of a 14 year promotion average
and a 9 year bottom entry record and adjusted slightly
upwards where the average rates are obviously too low) to
the following three factors:
-- bottom entry rates
-- promotion rates
-- affirmative action
The reasons should be obvious. Without a healthy,
predictable flow of talent from the bottom up through the
system, we cannot produce the kinds of career patterns,
specialists, and - as they get to the top - executive and
policy talent that the nation requires of its foreign
service. In respect of affirmative action, the service
is not yet representative and we cannot afford to wait
for minority talent to percolate up from the bottom. In
the long run, of course, the Service must work its way
out of this lateral entry program by bringing in enough
minorities and women in at the bottom who work their way
up through the ranks.
Step 3 Control the Other Managerially Determined
Variables to Make the Meet the Priorities
-- Increase Senior Egress by a decision not to renew
enough Limited Renewable appointments in the SFS
to meet the target rates for promotion into the
SFS (Current FSO-3 to 2, new FSO-1 to Career
Counselor)
-- Severely control non-affirmative action lateral
entries to provide more promotion opportunities
below.
-- Adjust downward, if necessary, mid-career time-in
class (from 22 years across current FSO 5, 4, and
3 to, say 20 years).
-- Increase slightly junior threshold egress rates
from, say, 10% to 12%.
Note: During the transition to the SFS, much of the
departure rate will be produced by the actuarial varia-
bles, such as age 60 retirement, personal decisions to
retire, and time-in-class.
But by the time the SFS is fully operative, the new
law's authority for Limited Appointments will become the
dominant gene, and eventually most egress from the SFS
will take place through non-renewal of limited appoint-
ments.
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Bottom Entry
160-180 officers a year, including affirmative
action
Promotion Rates
(Ranges in Percentages)
Old law
(new law)
ranges
FSO
8-7
(6-5)
60-70%
FSO
7-6
(5-4)
55-65%
FSO
6-5
(4-3)
35-42%
FSO
5-4
(3-2)
20-25%
FSO
4-3
(2-1)
14-19%
FSO
3-2
(1-CC)
9-13%
FSO
2-1
(CC-CCM)
8-12%
Note: For these purposes, the promotion rate from
FSO-1 to CM is irrelevant. Probably the ratio of
CMs to FSO-ls should be somewhat higher than it is
today.
Affirmative Action Mid-level Lateral Entry
Meet the Department's established goals (20 per
year)
Effect On the Other Variables
In descending order of probability:
-- An egress rate from the SFS of 9-14% a year.
-- A decrease in non-affirmative action lateral
entries.
-- A slight decrease in mid-career time-in-class.
-- A slight increase.in junior.. officers leaving the
service at or before the threshold.
The upward adjustments from the historical average,
always hinged, however, to the standard deviation, occur
in the bottom entry rate, and the promotion rates from
FSO-4 to 3 and FSO-3 to 2. Fragmentary data indicate
that recent average time-in-class from FSO 4 to FSO-3 of
those promoted is near to six years. A survey of senior
managers reveals a solid consensus that this is too long
in terms of preparing the average good officer for the
next rank, the optimum should be 4-5 years, with those on
the top moving faster and those on the bottom moving
slower or not at all. The promotion rate from 3 to 2
into the senior ranks is too low because not enough
senior officers retire, requiring the vigorous use of the
authority not to renew limited appointments contained in
the new Act.
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Conclusion
Whatever the final shape of the authorities in
the new Act, and we prefer reliance on a three year
renewable appointment for the Senior Foreign Service,
the Congress should require the Department:
-- To run the Foreign Service Personnel System from
a computer based model.
-- To place that model, including target parameters,
in the legislative history of the Act.
This will deter future sets of managers from
subverting the intent of the Secretary and the Congress
and introduce predictability and rationality in career
development and expectations. The model itself will not
provide the mix of talents, training and career develop-
ment needed, but without it there is no way to plan
these needs of American diplomacy for the next decade.
The setting of parameters by target ranges should
permit management sufficient flexibility to run the
system. But if management finds it necessary to adjust
the parameters, then it should consult or confer with the
Employee Organization and report any changes to the
concerned Congressional committees.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much.
Congressman Buchanan, would you like to start the questioning?
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I think it might be useful for the record to note that both Mr.
Walker and Mr. Harrop are Deputy Assistant Secretaries and each has
had a very distinguished career as a Foreign Service officer and, while
they testify as individuals here today, they are both former presidents
of AFSA and they are both members of an ad hoc group of Senior
Foreign Service officers. It is my understanding that while they speak
as individuals they do reflect views held by that ad hoc group, is that
correct?
Mr. HARROr. Yes, sir, it is. Thank you.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Can you indicate what objection the foreign affairs
agencies have raised to a single Senior Foreign Service and give us
some guidance as to how you would implement that?
Mr. HARROP. Yes.
Do you want to respond to that, Lannon?
Mr. WALKER.' As my colleague, Mr. Harrop, mentioned in the testi-
mony, the bill before you represents the state of the art as far as
bureaucratic politics will allow. No one that we talked to in this whole
process in the various agencies, the managers involved, quarreled with
the concept of a single Senior Foreign Service. In fact, in general we
were told that our position was correct, but as a matter of practical fact
when you looked at the agency rivalries the fight would not be worth
the candle.
In addition, the administration took certain positions in the reor-
ganization bills, in the ICA bill, in the transfer of the cultural affairs
function to ICA with regard to moves which in and of themselves
detract from the Secretary's authority in foreign affairs.
What we are suggesting here is a single Senior Foreign Service, and,
make no mistake about it, it would in fact increase the Secretary's
authority in the personnel function. We believe that could be done
without detracting in any essential way from the authorities of the
various agency directors to run their business. But for the administra-
tion to come up here and suggest that would mean really taking
another look at the positions they have already taken, and I don't think
anyone can really do that nor can we expect them to.
My own feeling, however, is that if the Congress saw the light, as it
were, and decided that there indeed should be a single Senior Foreign
Service in the national interest, I don't think the Secretary or any
other manager would have difficulty in finding out how to implement
the concept.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I am not sure I completely understand how we
would do it. I think your point was well taken that this would have to
come from the Congress given the realities of the situation, but if we
do it we have to do it by legislation and I am not sure what the shape
of that legislation would be.
Mr. HARROr. We would be glad to discuss that with the staff,
Mr. Buchanan. The bill itself as presented to you by the administra-
tion speaks repeatedly of compatibility. The importance of a com-
patible system is a system in which all the elements have the same
thrust. I don't think it would require, frankly, very substantial changes
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in the language of the bill to bring that about and to make explicit that
you are expecting the executive to run a coherent single Senior Foreign
Service representing all the various interests of all the various agencies
of the United States overseas.
Mr. WALKER. If you will permit, Mr. Buchanan, in essence what we
would be asking the Congress to do is to put in the act that there shall
be a single Senior Foreign Service and that among the exclusive duties
of the Secretary would be the management of that Service.
We also ask that Congress make known its intent in the legislative
record that you expect the management to work toward career develop-
ment patterns that will produce better specialists and generalists in
all ranks. You don't necessarily have to put that last requisite in the
law; that would be difficult to do.
Lastly, sir, on this issue of tinkering, with the personnel system, we
think that 3-year contract makes sense, someone else thinks the 5 year
time-in-class makes sense. These are extremely complex and difficult
issues. We don't pretend that we know what the 3-year contract would
give because no one has ever shown what the implications of that kind
of a system would be 5 years out on recruitment, on promotion, on all
these other things, but neither has management. So what we are asking
here is that you require management to come and show what the
implications of their system would be-and ours at the same time. We
think such an exercise would require a personnel model and probably
computer techniques. We owe it to ourselves, and to the Nation really,
to be able to show what these very important criteria and decisions
will mean 5 years out.
Mr. HARROr. Phrased differently, sir, a number of authorities are
being requested in this bill, many of which already exist and are being
reconfirmed, but it seems to us crucial that there be an understanding
on the part of the Congress and the public as to how they will be
utilized in a rational fashion. That is the kind of model that we have
in mind that would provide this.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Well, I don't know how you are going to know
from your model any more than we know from the State Department's
model or lack thereof unless you tell us how many people you are going
to flush out under the 3-year contract procedure. Then if you decide'
that you are going to flush out 25 percent, then you know how many
to recruit and how many you are going to have going up the ladder. I
don't understand how your model works any more scientifically than
the lack of a model in the State Department unless you put those kinds
of quotas in it.
Mr. HARROr. Let me ask Frank McNeil to respond to this, Mrs.
Schroeder.
Mr. MCNEIL.1 Our model has a number of assumptions-a Foreign
Service of some given size, a number of ways to enter, and a number
of ways to leave the Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And you have a number of slots in the Service and
you know what those are.
Mr. McNEIL. Yes. For example, the Department's figures are a total
size of 3,750 Foreign Service officers and 900 of them in the Senior
Foreign Service. The first thing to do obviously is to decide the actual
shape of the Service you are going to have. If those are the figures, then
you operate on that assumption.
I Frank McNeil, Foreign Service Inspector. Department of State.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you have any questions about those figures in
your mind versus their mind?
Mr. McNEIL. No. We have taken these figures as given. It is the
kind of issue that is worth discussing in the context of preparing this
legislation which will set, for better or worse, the course of the Nation's
diplomatic service for some years to come. Once you decide on the
shape of the positions you need, then you have to begin to calculate the
effects and this is what our presentation of the model is to do.
We don't say that the results at the end of the model are the actual
results that would come out running it on a computer-based program
although in designing this we based it on the historical data and the
averages. If you do not do something like this, you are going to con-
tinue to get what the data illustrates I think. beyond question; that is,
the system where in some years we are going to bring in 84 people and
some years we are going to bring in 227 people ?at the bottom. After
we bring in 84 people we are not going to have enough young mid-
career officers and after we bring in 227 people at the bottom we find
out we have too many people at the younger midcareer level leaving
because there are no promotion opportunities.
What we need is a rational system. The record of the last 15 years
is abysmal. It is not because the people involved in these decisions are
necessarily bad people-most of them are very intelligent-hut in point
of fact none of them realize that every time it would affect immedi-
ately and over time the operation of our personnel system.
I think that people have thought because the Foreign Service officer
corps is fairly small-it has ranged from 3,000 to 3,700 over the past
15 years-that you could do this sort of thing without worrying about
using modern techniques to assess the effects of personnel decisions.
You could not do that with the military because you have so many
people. I don't hold the military system up as a model of exactly how
one should run a personnel system but at least it is done systematically.
Without a system there is not much hope. With a system you will still
have to make rational decisions. It would still require human judg-
ment but at least you can calculate the effects of specific personnel
decisions.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Would you yield just a moment?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Sure.
Mr. BUCHANAN. There is another variable in here and without chal-
lenging what you are saying, there is a variable that is going to add
pandemonium in the system or an element of irrationality and that is
when personnel ceilings are imposed by the Office of Management and
Budget and the Congress gets in a conservative mood and whacks
away. So, notwithstanding whatever rationale you have in the system,
you are going to have all of a sudden
Mrs. SCHROEDER. People quitting.
Mr. McNEIL. That is true.
Mr. WALKER. Could I give a quick followup to your question,
Mrs. Schroeder?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Yes.
Mr. WALKER. For example, we could decide that our priority was a
steady rate of recruitment into the system.
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Second, we could assume that most people would be retiring at the
colonel level or the FS-1, and that the given rate of promotion was
necessary.
Third, let's say we picked affirmative action for minority groups
as another priority.
Really all we are saying is that if you use the techniques of model-
ing correctly and make sure that all of the variables, the ones that
Mr. Buchanan mentioned, and the rest are included the model will tell
you, among other things, how many people have to leave at the top of
the Foreign Service to attain your goals because that is where they have
to leave from to open up the system.
That is the most critical place, at the top, the Senior Foreign Service
officers. At that point you have to then ask what is the egress mecha-
nism that will get these people out? In essence we are saying if you are
on a 3-year renewable contract then in a regular way you have the op-
portunity to address the question of egress from the system, you have
to get rid of 10 people or whatever.
Mrs. SCI-HROEDER. But if you are in a class of very good people, you
say tough noogies. Next year you have a mediocre group, you are going
to preserve all but 10 because that is what the model tells you?
Mr. WALKER. That is the essence of our system. When we talk about
"up or out" there is no other way to do it. You are not removed from
the system because you have done something bad necessarily. By the
time you make the Senior Foreign Service, you are supposed to be good.
It is a question of relative performance, and precisely what selection
boards do is rank people from the top of their class to the bottom and
someone has to leave.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you are only going to rank them with the
people in that 3-year pool.
Mr. WALKER. No; they are ranked every year.
Mr. HARROP. They are ranked with their colleagues.
Mrs. SCHROFDER. But if they are ranked lower than the rest of the
group, you have to push 10 out.
Mr. WALKER. Yes.
Mr. HARROP. They will be ranked only against their colleagues in
their own immediate class. So if there are 500 people in class then if
enough people did not voluntarily retire for whatever reason then
you would simply have to go to the bottom of the ranking of these
people and not renew the contracts of 10.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And you think that is important so you always
know how many slots you are going to have?
Mr. HARROP. Otherwise, the problems we have now will continue.
We have too many senior officers, so we are not recruiting enough new
blood in at the bottom of the system. We don't have room to bring
people in. We have people who are retiring or leaving the service vol-
untarily in the middle grades, very valuable people to the Government
and to us. They are leaving because they are discouraged. There are
so many senior people that are not leaving that they are allowing no
opportunities for promotion.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. They should be more valuable for corporate
memory.
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Mr. HARROP. It is not going to be getting rid of a large number of
people ruthlessly. It is a small number each year to keep the system
operating.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. How does your employment model then affect equal
employment opportunities?
Mr. McNEI . We have expressly and explicitly written in several
.places the requirement that the affirmative action goals be met. We
would. suggest that you are probably going to have to control lateral
entries that are not a result of the affirmative action criteria but we
support affirmative action. We in fact have written this into the model
as one of the priorities along with inflow at the bottom and predictable
promotion flows through the system and out at the top.
Mr. HARROP. You write those objectives in and those objectives,
because of the nature of the flow, require you to take certain other
actions and you can see the effects if you want to increase your affirma-
tive action entry.
Mr. WALKER. Management has never been able to consider that.
Mr. McNEIL. Consider our personnel system as a bag of jello; if you
push in, in one place, it will bulge out in other places. So if you restrict
the number of senior officers who stay in forever, which is what we are
really asking, then you get rid of more of us faster.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You want to lower the retirement age?
Mr. McNEIL. No; just put the limited appointment system into
effect so it produces an outflow from the senior ranks probably in the
9- to 13- or 14-percent range every year. This would provide for ra-
tional promotion rates, we believe, and rational entry rates at the
bottom.
Mr. HARROP. Most of those people would be leaving anyway. If there
is still an age limit, they would be bumping against that. If there is
not, they would be retiring for other reasons. So they are not going
to be all mandatorily pushed out, only that residue which is not leav-
ing voluntarily.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think we understand the rock and the pool. But
there is something that you do not address and that is the whole popula-
tion. Maybe you are going to have a much larger school age population
graduating and you are going to want to recruit from this. So if you
want to get really scientific, then you have to almost increase and de-
crease with the pool that is out there and I am not sure when we get
to the point where the machine is running us rather than us running
the machine.
Mr. HARROP. We would suggest that probibly your value decision,
what you want to do, would set a range of, for instance, recruitment;
a range between, say, 160 new officers a year and 180 or 200, whatever
the decision was. Then you could adjust that with your population
changes as they came along. You would make adjustments within that
very well.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am going to have to excuse us so we can vote on
this since we finally got to final passage.
We will have a temporary recess.
(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]
Mrs. SCI-TROEDER. Mr. Buchanan, do you have more questions that
you would like to ask?
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Mr. BUCHANAN. There are several aspects. As to the single Senior
Foreign Service, I want to make sure I understand that. Does that
mean that every officer will be available for use by whatever foreign
affairs agency? Would that be the concept?
Mr. HARROP. That would be the concept, Congressman, that we would
bring the best of all of the foreign affairs agencies up into the pool of
Senior Foreign Service officers. On the whole they would probably
tend to work in their area of expertise. We are not proposing that there
be any forcing of people into new molds but we think if you take the
best of each and if you have a unified system they will be better able
to manage the activities across the board of all three agencies.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Now you indicated that you had made a contrast or
difference between specialists and executives. I wonder if we could
have a clearer description of these two categories and why they should
be mutually exclusive.
Mr. WALKER. I refer to our colleagues in private industry. No one, in
private industry to my knowledge goes out and recruits for the presi-
dent of the company, but rather goes out and recruits to get the specific
job done-lawyers, accountants, whatever. Then management looks and
asks, "Does this fellow in addition to being a competent lawyer seem
to have the capacity for a broader and more executive management
capability ?" If so, let's begin to move him around and give him that
experience and let's do that with several of the other specialists that
work with us. Let's give them more management experience and then
when it comes time to select candidates into top management you have
a pool of people who have a track record.
Now we don't do that very effectively in the Foreign Service. We
neither put an awful lot of time into assuring that our junior and mid-
career officers have profound expertise on the one hand nor do we
start moving people and giving them executive management experi-
ence. By the time they come across the senior threshold some very diffi-
cult and unfair questions are posed.
You look at a fellow who is a political or economic or consular officer
and ask, "Is he ready to move into the senior ranks? What is his track
record as a manager? Maybe the individual has never had a manage-
ment job so he does not get promoted, and that is unfair to him. He
was never told that he should concentrate on a specialty or that
he should start looking at a broader range of executive experience. He
did not get either one and he is not promoted and he is out, and that is
unfair.
We just assume, as we do so often, that because you are a Senior For-
einn Service officer you are going to be a good manager. That does not
always follow. Or that you are a profound specialist. and that does not
follow either. That explains what my colleague Mr. Harrop said: "We
have both a surplus of senior officers and too small a pool to choose from
for the top jobs.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me ask you a question if I can interrupt.
If he is not a manager and he is not a profound specialist, whatever
thn.t is. what is he?
Mr. WALKER. He is just a Senior Foreign Service officer who has
managed to make it that far.
Mr. FASOELL. A Senior Foreign Service officer who has managed
to make it that far.
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Mr. WALKER. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. That is a strange category, and that is most of the
people.
Mr. WALKER. No. We didn't say that. We said there are too many
in that category.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, there can't be many of the other kind. I am
serious.
You know, what is the rule of thumb? How many managers do you
have for x number of people? Everybody cannot be a manager, right?
Mr. WALKER. Right.
Mr. FASCELL. There is only one profound specialist in the country
area that I have heard of in the State Department; they never allow
two. The way I see it, how many managers for 1,000 people? Is it on
a ratio of 1 to 10 in terms of managership? What is the rule of thumb?
Mr. HARROP. In the Foreign Service, Mr. Chairman, I think there
is a larger need for managers than there is in most personnel systems
because we have a great number of small posts around the world, each
of which has to have a consul, consul general or a Deputy Chief of
Mission and Ambassador.
Mr. FASCELL. How many people is that?
Mr. HARROP. 600.
Mr. FASCELL. How many people do you have in the State Depart-
ment? I don't have any of the figures or the facts before me.
Mr. WALKER. Approximately 900 Senior Foreign Service officers.
Mr. FASCELL. So every consul or officer is classed as a manager and
every ambassador is classed as a manager and every division within
the embassy is classed as a manager. That is not the case, is it?
Mr. HARROP. No.
Mr. McNEIL. No.
Mr. FASCELL. You know, I run out of managers fast is what I was
trying to say. At.least that is the way it looked to me.
Mr. HARROP. Well, we need more people who have the kinds of
talent to be an executive and to program the foreign affairs opera-
tions and get the best out of people and resources.
Mr. FASCELL. Where do you get him?
Mr. HARROP. We have to train him in our system.
Mr. FASCELL. Do you create another cone for him?
Mr. WALKER. That is one way.
Mr. FASCELL. Holy mackerel.
Mr. WALKER. As I mentioned before you came, Mr. Chairman, pri-
vate industry recruits for what they need to get the job done-lawyers
or accountants-and from that pool of specialists they choose people
and move them around to broader managerial experience.
One of the unfortunate parts about the way we do our business is
that many of our people spend the bulk of their careers without the
experience of managing larger numbers of people. In fact they are
individual performers but as they move across the senior threshold,
by the nature of some of these jobs, by the theory of our profession,
they are called upon to do managerial work for which they have not
had the experience. We are calling for career development patterns
for both specialists and generalists.
Mr. FASCELL. Not necessarily statutory, not necessarily deregulatory,
not even directively-just career management policy.
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Mr. WALKER. Yes.
Mr. HARROP. We would hope that in the record of the preparation
of this act that it be made clear that this is what the intention was,
to prepare this kind of quality people because the authorities are there.
The authorities are in the bill to do it. What is important is the way
it is implemented.
Mr. FASCELL. I didn't mean to make you smile but you were respond-
ing to that. I don't know what my reaction to that would be right off
the top of my head. I would say just about anything as far as what we
think career management policy ought to be, of what personnel
development policy ought to be. I don't know that it would do any
good. I am not sure we will ever settle the argument.
Mr. WALKER. Well, the bill in front of you is a bill of structural
reform and we are perhaps unfairly talking about content but we think
it is important given the history of our profession.
Mr. FASCELL. I agree. I think it is perfect.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have no further questions.
Mr. BUCHANAN. There may be other questions, Mr. Chairman. Staff
will be in touch with you and perhaps if we have other questions we
will submit them for the record.
Mr. HARROP. We would be delighted to submit anything else for the
record, sir.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I certainly would be supportive of adding as much
rationale to the structure and the law. I still think that outside factors
will continue to play havoc with any element of rationality that may
be written into the system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Amen.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you.
Mr. HARROP. Thank you. We appreciate all of your time and atten-
tion to the Foreign Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you, gentlemen.
[The questions submitted in writing and their responses follow:]
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED IN WRITING , TO MESSRS. HARROP AND WALKER AND
RESPONSES THERETO
Question. What objections have the foreign affairs agencies raised to a single
Senior Foreign Service? How would you implement the concept?
Answer. The foreign affairs agencies-indeed any agency authorized to use
the Foreign Service Personnel system-resist the concept of a single Senior
Foreign Service because they believe, incorrectly, that such a service would
undercut management authority within their agencies. In brief, the agencies fear
for their turf ; they think some outside body, or worse the Secretary of State, will
dictate assignments within the various agencies ; they fear that a single promo-
tion board would mean disproportionate promotions for State officers.
None of these fears is justified if the single Senior Foreign Service is imple-
mented as we recommend :
1. Under the general authority of the Secretary a new Office of Foreign Service
Personnel Management (OFSPM) headed by the Director General and located
independently of any agency, would oversee the Foreign Service Personnel sys-
tem. This office might well be staffed largely by personnel experts not themselves
of the career service.
2. The OFSPM would assure uniform standards for executives coming across
the senior threshold and uniform precepts for executives in the promotion process
within the various agencies.
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376
3. However, threshold criteria and promotion precepts for various agency
specialists would be uniform only insofar as the functions performed were or
should be compatible across agency lines.
4. OFSPM would assure that each agency did not exceed its allocated number
of Senior Foreign Service positions and would, in concert with the various
agencies, assure that egress and promotion rates fit with the overall needs for
expertise and management abilities.
5. OFSPM would be responsible for senior training and would oversee career
development and guidance programs.
6. OFSPM would coordinate the assignment of members of the Senior Foreign
Service across agency lines, assisting the agencies to make maximum benefit of
the overall pool of experienced executives and specialist talent. However, OFSPM
would not be empowered to enforce such assignments against the desire of an
agency.
Question. Please explain your concepts of "specialists" and "executives". Why
should they be mutually exclusive?
Answer. In one sense the categories of specialists and executives are not mu-
tually exclusive. As in private business, the Foreign Service should recruit for
the tasks it must perform-and hence everyone begins as a specialist, or soon
becomes one. But as in private business, the executive or across-the-board man-
ager must by and large be chosen from the ranks of the specialists. What we
recommend is a system which, on the one hand, begins to form executives at a
much earlier stage and, on the other, pays more attention to and rewards highly
developed functional and/or area expertise. We also believe that by the time an
officer crosses the senior threshold he must have opted for and clearly established
his credentials as either an executive or a specialist.
Question. You state the need to avoid recruitments and promotions for the pur-
pose of solving particular problems, such as the sudden need for "a dozen Farsi
speakers." But what does the agency do when it encounters a need such as this?
Answer. The thrust of our testimony about the personnel system aims at sub-
stituting rational planning for the haphazard approach that has long character-
ized the Foreign Service. In good measure, the Foreign Service can prevent the
need for emergency recruitment of trainees for hard languages by the exercise of
foresight. For the most part, our universities do not produce graduates fluent in
hard languages such as Russian, Farsi or Japanese. Consequently, we have to
train officers through the programs of the Foreign Service Institute for periods
of ten months to two years. It is like locking the barn door after the horse is
stolen to begin to train language officers only after a crisis occurs. Long term
requirements for language-competent officers can and should be built into the
personnel model.
What is required is a pool of relatively junior officers from which the trainees
come. And this, as a first step, requires a constant flow of junior officers into the
bottom of the career, as we advocate in the model. In this way, we can produce a
pipeline of language officers, who will give us on-the-ground language capability
in key areas.
If an emergency arises, the Foreign Service then can have at least some officers
in place who are fluent in the language, and a pool from which to draw additional
trainees to augment, over time, necessary language capability. It seems evident
that the deterioration of the Foreign Service's hard language capabilities is in
part the result of the lack of systematic personnel planning. (Shortsighted cost-
cutting devices have also been a factor.)
If we were to run our personnel system along the lines we advocate, the Foreign
Service would be in a position to strengthen its foreign language capability.
something that is very much in the national interest of this increasingly difficult
world.
Question. Please explain your "personnel model."
Answer. There are two principal concerns, the national interest and elemental
fairness to the employees. Both have been badly served by our irrational per-
sonnel system. It is not correct to argue that because you cannot plan for every-
thing you should plan for nothing. In a way, this attitude is akin to a common
criticism of our approach to international affairs in the postwar era : the tendency
to reactive diplomacy. Because personnel managers historically have not per-
ceived linkages and flows throughout the system, they have usually found them-
selves reacting to needs in an ad hoc fashion, with the sorry results set forth
in pages one through seven of our paper on the system.
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We describe, beginning on page six, how the FSO-system actually operates,
and technically competent officials concur that the description is quite precise.
The key charts (models) are found on pages eight and eleven, showing respec-
tively the ways officers at all levels will enter and leave, the system under the
authorities of the new act and the way officers flow into, through and out of
the system. Some of the ways officers leave the Foreign Service (e.g., the assas-
sination of an FSO, or an individual's voluntary retirement) have nothing to do
with management decisions. But management decisions do determine how many
people will enter and, in good measure, how many will leave in any given year.
If the system is left to run by itself, as influenced by a stream of ad hoc man-
agerial decisions, the projections for the next ten years, described on page 12,
show rather clearly that too few people will leave the Foreign Service par-
ticularly at the top, to permit sufficient entry at the bottom and rational promo-
tion rates up through the system.
Consequently, we set forth, beginning on page 13 of our paper, a conceptual
framework of how the system might be operated in a rational way, giving pri-
ority to stable, healthy entry and promotion rates. (In the recent past, a manage-
ment decision to extend the time-in-class for senior officers unconsciously gave
priority to reducing the retirement rate at the top, thereby sharply lowering
promotion rates and entries at the bottom.) The desirable rate of career flow
would require a modest increase in retirements from the Senior Foreign Service
(using the device of nonrenewable limited appointments) and a restriction in the
number of lateral entries for other than affirmative action reasons. The end
result would be a four to ten year projection giving target ranges for entry at
the junior level, promotion rates at each class, lateral entries, egress from the
senior foreign service, and other variables such as retirements for time-in-class
at mid-career. All of this is eminently manageable, and while it requires hard,
precise work to set it up, would, once in place, ease management's burdens by
eliminating-or at least very much reducing-the perennial sense of crisis that
pervades our personnel system.
Obviously, unanticipated strains will still be caused by influences outside the
control of management, e.g., sharp changes in Congressional budget action or
international crisis of one sort or another. But these will be much more manage-
able if the rational model exists and if at the very least, management can pre-
dict the effect of any particular change on all the elements of the personnel
system.
Question. How would your "orderly flow" system affect affirmative action re-
quirements which are essentially an expression that past "orderly flows" dis-
criminate against selected groups of people?
Answer. As we emphasized in our written and oral testimony, we are com-
mitted to affirmative action. The Foreign Service needs to become more repre-
sentative of the American people. The model we advocate provides explicitly
(pages 13 and 14) that the Foreign Service set priority on affirmative action,
along with steady, predictable rates of recruitment and promotion. In order to
reach these priorities, we advocate restricting lateral entries on grounds other
than affirmative action. It is incorrect to state that orderly flows have discrim-
inated against selected groups of people. The whole problem with the system
over the past 15 years, as the data conclusively shows, is that there has been no
orderly flow at all. Finally, how can we attract minority candidates and-a ques-
tion often ignored-keep them, when they confront, along with everyone else,
the obscure career development and promotion prospects that have character-
ized the system to date?
Question. How does the Harrop/Walker proposal differ from the computer
model the Department is now using to determine intake and promotion levels?
Answer. We hope the Committee will ask the Department to respond to this
question. In essence, management has said in public forums that once they have
the law they will figure out how to run the system. Personnel has told us they
do not have a computer model, though they are in the process of contracting for
one. The Department calculates promotions each year simply by calculating the
vacancies above, a process which has produced the roller coaster entry and pro-
motion rates of the past years. It uses computer technology for these calculations,
but it is a far cry from the systematic modeling that we advocate.
Question. How can any computerized intake and promotion system take account
of such variables as : the need to send hundreds of FSOs to Vietnam in the mid-
1960's; the loss of over 200 FSO positions in one month in 1975 with the fall of
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Vietnam and Cambodia ; the lower court decision banning mandatory retirement.
and its later reversal by the Supreme Court ; and the like?
Answer. We stressed (page 13) that the first step in operating the model was
to decide upon the desired size of the Foreign Service and the various ranks
which comprise it. Whatever the numbers finally decided upon, over the years
there will be some variation in both the size of the service and the numbers of
positions at each rank, because of new functions or reclassification of positions
upwards or downwards.
The model, because it sets ranges for the number of officers entering at the
bottom, for promotion percentages at each rank, for egress from the Fenior ranks,
and for all the other managerially determined ways of entering and leaving the
service offers more than enough flexibility to handle a good deal of unfore-
seen variation, certainly up to 50 and perhaps even 100 officers, if they were
distributed fairly evenly. A cataclysmic event on the scale of the fall of Vietnam
and Cambodia would of course disrupt any system. But it would be far less dis-
ruptive if a working model was available to test alternative approaches to han-
dling the problem. The model would in fact provide the tool for dealing with an
unpredicted and major change in the system.
If the ill-advised proposal to take economic and commercial responsibilities
from the Foreign Service and put this large and important group of functional
experts on the street took place along the lines now being advocated, no per-
sonnel system could fully limit the damage to the Foreign Service and the na-
tional interest in these functions, much less to the individual people involved.
Needless to say, the so called commercial reorganization, as currently conceived,
runs directly Counter to the purposes of the proposed Foreign Service Act now
before the Committees. We reiterate that the use of an operating personnel model
would help deal with major changes, and that while no system can plan for all
contingencies, it would be well to have a system that can deal with most.
Question. Why should we tie the Department's hands from being able to react
to new or unforeseen developments by writing into the law rigid "parameters"
on intake and promotion numbers?
Answer. We did not ask that Congress write the parameters themselves into
the law; that would not be sensible. We ask that Congress write into the law
a requirement, in whatever language seems most reasonable, that the Foreign
Affairs agencies operate their personnel systems on the basis of a systematic
multi-year model and, further, that the Department's model, including the param-
eters for the significant elements of the personnel system's flows, be made a part
of the legislative record. If not, the Congress, the public and the Foreign Service
itself will be getting a pig in a poke. As a check on future sets of transient man-
agers, we would recommend that Congress require significant changes in the
parameters be reported to Congress and be the subject of Consultation with the
elected employee representatives.
Question. Aren't the personnel system problems you describe more a result of
external factors, such as the Vietnam war and the rising consular workload, than
of arbitrary "tinkering with the system" by management?
Answer. No. On this question we believe that we and the management of the
Department are in accord. Their testimony indicates they have sought this new
legislation in order to reform the personnel system, because of serious systemic
problems. Our answer to question seven covers much of this issue. We add that
the kind of system we advocate would have certainly permitted a more rational
approach to the rising consular workload, which after all, occurred over a num-
ber of years and not all at once. In respect to the consular function, in particu-
lar, it is clear that more fair and more rational career patterns cannot be devel-
oped without such a system. In the conversations among Foreign Service per-
sonnel about the structure of their career, no theme recurs more often than the
desire to see established a predictable, rational system and then stop tinkering
with it.
Question. In your testimony, you express concern that there will not, in fact,
be one Senior Foreign Service, but several. Do you think that one Senior For-
eign Service can be accomplished without amending the legislation, i.e., through
regulations or legislative history?
Answer. Given the history of reform efforts and the demonstrated tendency
of the various agencies to set up differing standards and systems, it seems to
us absolutely necessary that the law itself provide for a single Senior Foreign
Service.
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Question. Is it your assumption that virtually all Senior Foreign Service offi-
cers will be "blanketed-in" as you use the term, into the Senior Foreign Service?
If so, doesn't that in effect negate the concept of a senior body of outstanding
officers?
Answer. The authors of this bill say that officers currently at the ranks of
0-2 and above will be given the option of entering the senior Foreign Service
under new time-in-class criteria (ranging from 3 to 4 years) or staying out, in
which case the officer would serve out 3 years and then be retired. Who in his
right mind would opt to stay out? There seems little question that under the bill
as drafted all current senior officers will be blanketed-in to the new Senior For-
eign Service. We see two approaches to resolve this problem :
(1) Set up a pre-screening which would assure that all current senior
officers qualify under the same criteria which will be applied to subsequent
applicants at the senior threshold, or
(2) Put all current officers into the Senior Foreign Service but institute
the 3 year contract system immediately, thus forcing a weeding-out process
as soon as possible.
We prefer the second alternative, although we could accept the first. Our prob-
lem with the first alternative, of course, is that the criteria for crossing the senior
threshold are not yet developed.
Question. To your knowledge has the Department utilized a personnel model
in formulating the bill before us and if not, why not?
Answer. No, they have not. And this is precisely why we have taken up this
issue and why we have prepared our rather detailed paper on the subject in the
hope of contributing to their efforts and those of the Congress. We hope the Com-
mittee will ask management its views of the approach we have outlined and how
they intend to actually run the system, only the framework for which is provided
by the bill under construction. We believe it would be better to do this work now,
under the spur of Congressional consideration, than wait until after the bill is
law.
Question. What is your evaluation of the mandatory retirement requirement?
Can and should it be replaced by other requirements such as health?
Answer. As we have stated previously, we believe that the sole egress mecha-
nism at the Senior Foreign Service level should be the limited career appointment
of three years. If such a system were in effect, there would be no need for other
mechanisms, including mandatory retirement for age. In brief, retention in the
Senior Foreign Service would be based solely upon merit and relative perform-
ance as determined by rankings by a board of peers. Below the Senior Threshold
and in the staff corps we believe that current egress mechanism, including manda-
tory retirement for age should continue to apply.
Question. Are you satisfied with the grievance procedures provided in this
legislation?
Answer. Yes, but we agree with AFSA that the implementation of this legisla-
tion should not lead to the exclusion of supervisors from? the bargaining unit.
Question. ICA Director Rheinhardt and Acting AID Administrator Nooter, in
appearing at these hearings, have testified in support of the establishment of a
unified Foreign Service personnel system. However, the point your testimony
raises about a single Senior Foreign Service (SFS) has not been sufficiently
addressed by the Administration. Please expand on your support for an inte-
grated SFS for all foreign affairs agencies :
What agencies do you have in mind? Are the Peace Corps, ACDA, Agriculture,
Treasury, the CIA, and-potentially-Commerce included?
What degree of interchange among agencies of SFS officers would you en-
visage? Would senior AID officers be named as ambassadors and State SFS
officers as AID mission directors?
Would doing this not place too much emphasis on broad executive skills, leav-
ing too little room for senior specialist positions?
Answer. Testimony by the agency heads in support of a unified Foreign Service
personnel system is belied by their strong opposition to provisions in the act
which have actually required compatibility among the various agency personnel
systems.
In fact, it is the negative attitude displayed by all the key management players
which leads us to insist that a single Senior Foreign Service be established in the
law, rather than relying on regulations or good will.
The Senior Foreign Service should staff most of the senior career positions in
State, ICA and AID.
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State, ICA and AID are staffed primarily with Foreign Service positions-thus
the Senior Foreign Service will apply most particularly to these agencies. How-
ever, every agency that uses the. Foreign Service personnel system for senior
positions would be staffed by the Senior Foreign Service. In most cases, outside
of State, ICA and AID, Senior Foreign Service officers would be on interchange
assignments or on detail. The ill-planned and confusing proposal for a new For-
eign Commercial Service in the Department of Commerce-if the Congress
permits this undesirable reorganization-could be limited in its damage to our
overseas effectiveness only if the foreign service positions in Commerce were
staffed by officers from a unified Senior Foreign Service.
All members of the Senior Foreign Service would be equally eligible for con-
sideration for chief of mission assignments. Indeed, if the single service which
we recommend is established the artificial distinction and invidious comparisons
among personnel of the various agencies would disappear.
The single Senior Foreign Service, as we propose it, would permit and en-
courage the development of more and better in each category of executives and
specialists.
Question. What specific language changes would you suggest in the proposed
legislation to insure the unified SFS you support? Given the serious bureaucratic
problems among the respective agencies a single SFS could create, would it not
be better for the legislation to require a study of how to make the SFS more
compatible among the agencies rather than to try to force uniformity through
legislation at this time?
Answer. We have been in touch with the staff concerning suggested changes in
the draft bill. A few changes in language will ensure the evolution of coherent,
unified American representation overseas. We are convinced that a legislative
mandate is required, or we will have a continued proliferation of agency services.
Another study on the need for compatibility will not do. The thrust of such studies
over 30 years of reform efforts calls for a single Foreign Service of the United
States. Let's do it.
Question. Please provide more specifics in your suggestions for differentiating
executives and specialists in the SFS. What types of positions would you cate-
gorize as SFS specialist positions? How would assignment and training policies
differ for the two categories? How would you insure that SFS specialists did not
in fact become a "second class" category? How would your differentiation apply
to agencies other than State?
Answer. In the question above we have gone into some detail concerning the
system of executives and specialists in the senior foreign service. The extremes
clearly identify, for example, science officers on the one hand and Deputy Assist-
ant Secretaries on the other. In general, the difference tends to come down to the
number of people or operations supervised. The specialist is more an individual
performer with deep expertise on a given subject. The executive, who will have
begun his career as a specialist, is more the manager who leads and coordinates
others to accomplish the agencies' overall goals. From early on training and
assignment policies would differ markedly for these two categories ; if our system
were accepted, each would have more and better training at much earlier stages
of his or her career.
By the time officers reached the senior threshold, our approach would in fact
produce both a pool of officers with executive experience and the required number
of functional and area experts that are needed in the senior ranks. Our system,
by emphasizing more and better training for specialists and better-directed career
development for them, would in fact move specialists into a first class category
rather than the 2nd class they now find themselves in. The system of specialists
and executives in the senior ranks would be applicable to the major foreign
affairs agencies. For example, in AID those officers who have had broad program
responsibilities in their career would tend to move into the executive category
while those with expertise in agriculture, health or education would advance in
the specialist category. The same kind of differentiation would take place in ICA
and in other agencies which use the foreign service personnel system, including
Commerce if the Congress permits implementation of the fragmented and ineffi-
cient proposed reform of overseas commercial work.
Question. You have taken a strong position opposing passage of the new Act
until a computerized personnel model for the Foreign Service is developed, scruti-
nized and incorporated into the legislative history of the Foreign Service Act.
What is your estimate of how soon this can be done? How far along is manage-
ment in contracting out for such a model? Are there ways of achieving the
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personnel structure you advocate without long delays in passage of the
legislation?
Answer. It depends on how much effort is applied ; we are assured that it is not
a particularly difficult project technically ; since the variables are not numerous
and can be combined to some extent for the purposes of the computer modeling.
We don't think that an insistence upon national planning and a demonstration
of how the executive would utilize the authorities requested of the Congress
should produce long delays in the legislation. We don't know how far along the
Department is in contracting for a model and, we trust, in its own thinking. But
we hope the Committee will press the Department to move ahead quickly.
Question. Your model only covers FS and SFS officers in the State Department.
How would you apply it to AID, ICA and ACDA? How would your model mesh
with your support for a single SFS?
Answer. We call for a single Senior Foreign Service which would include all
senior Foreign Service Officers regardless of the agency to which they were
assigned. It should be clear that the personnel model we advocate must cover
all of these officers. And therefore the model would indeed apply to the Senior
Foreign Service in AID, ICA, State etc.
Insofar as each agency maintains separate services below the senior threshold
each should have comparable models which are geared to the vacancies at the
single senior threshold.
Question. Why did you select three years as the period for each extension in
the SFS? Are you suggesting that the legislation specify a period of three years?
Isn't management already planning a three-year period for SFS appointments
after expiration of initial time-in-class provisions?
Answer. We believe that the Senior Foreign Service should go on to a three year
renewable appointment system from the very beginning. Time-in-class, after all,
is a mechanism which has failed in the past. Secondly, if the three year renew-
able appointment system were used, as management apparently proposes, to keep
on certain officers whose time-in-class has expired, it would become a "saving-
mechanism" rather than an egress mechanism.
Question. Your statement made no mention of the transition provisions in the
Act between existing senior FSO ranks and the SFS. Do you agree with the con-
version "window" concept? Do you generally agree with management's proposals
for implementing the transition?
Answer. We have no problem with the "conversion window" concept for officers
coming across the threshold. Our problem is that management's proposal for the
transition is based upon staggered time-in-class from three to five years; it will
delay too long the tough decisions as to who stays and who goes in the new Senior
Foreign Service. We recommend moving immediately to a three year limited
renewable appointment system whereby those officers who are low ranked would
be retired. A central problem historically has been the marked reluctance of
managers of the Foreign Service-themselves frequently FSO's-to make and
implement the decisions obliging early retirement of senior officers. The law
should provide a simple, clear, and inescapable mechanism to see that this is
done in both the national interest and the interest of the Foreign Service itself.
Question. If your model (stressing egress from the top within a fixed percent-
age range each year) were adopted, how would it take into account sudden
changes in the size of the Foreign Service. For example, if proposals currently
under consideration elsewhere in the Congress concerning trade reorganization
are adopted, State stands to lose several hundred commercial officer positions.
How would you propose to adjust to such a reduction if State's current commer-
cial officers desire to remain in the Foreign Service? Would you propose egress
from the top, thus decimating the senior ranks, or a reduction in force throughout
all ranks?
Answer. There is no way to implement the proposal currently envisaged with-
out severe dislocation, not only of the people but of the function. We understand
Commerce wishes to have its own foreign service with its own rules, which it
plans to produce overnight by absorbing some current Foreign Service officers and
converting some domestic Commerce Department people into a new and redundant
Foreign Service. How Commerce proposes to give this service instant language,
area and commercial expertise has not been explained, much less how the na-
tional interest would be served by abolishing the hard won commercial expertise
of the present Foreign Service and thus rebuilding it in a separate system less
integrated and less resronsive to the Ambassador.
At the risk of repetition, we support a Foreign Service of the United States,
not of the State Department or of any other Department. We believe that the
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creation of a new and separate Commerce Department foreign service is contrary
to the national interest and opens the door to separate foreign services for many
government agencies. Whatever the final disposition of the commercial function,
among competing Washington bureaucracies, a unified Foreign Service should
continue to perform the function, providing continuity of expertise and career
development patterns that permit interchangeable assignments among commercial
and economic officers. Anything else would be extraordinarily wasteful and
would set back our export promotion and commercial work many years.
Question. If a gifted young officer is able to enter the SFS at an early age but
is unable to obtain sufficient renewable extensions to reach age 50 and qualify
for retirement benefits, how would you propose to adjust the retirement provi-
sions so the officer would not be disadvantaged?
Answer. The retirement provisions, both current and proposed, provide for just
such a contingency. Any officer FSO-3 or above who is selected out receives the
retirement benefits to which he is entitled by salary and length of service. The
proposed legislation simply adjusts the language to provide, in respect of the
Senior Foreign Service, the same benefits for those whose limited appointments
are not renewed. The legislation breaks no new ground in this respect and there
is no problem.
Question. Do you have any views to express on the spousal provisions in the
spouses' contributions to representational and other official duties?
Answer. We are encouraged that the Congress, the Department and AFSA
are beginning to come to grips with what is known as the "spouse issue". We
live in a period of rapid social change, placing perhaps greater stress on a highly
mobile Foreign Service than on any other single element of our government. We
think it is fair to say that we not only lack answers, we have yet to clearly de-
fine the questions. This we must do rapidly, because the problem will soon ap-
proach crisis proportions. In the interim, we need to ensure that no clause in
the new act should be written in a way which could be interpreted as a deroga-
tion of any career personnel in favor of a spouse. And the pertinent appropria-
tions should ensure that training and other opportunities are so funded as to
provide for full access to career employees and to spouses.
We favor the concept of spouse compensation and regard it as an example of
the innovative thinking that will be needed in addressing the many facets of
issue. We think the Congress could do the State Department a service by direct-
ing that the entire question be examined, in consultation with AFSA, perhaps
with the assistance of private consultants.
Question. What are your views on the present cone system? Does it develop
appropriate skills for future SFS executives? Do you agree with management's
thinking on developing a two-track cone system?
Answer. The cone system has satisfied some of the hopes which were originally
pinned on it. However, in other respects it has failed. The rigidity of the cone
system, when considered with the promotion system, provides a disincentive to
officers to break out of functional strait jackets and develop broader skills. The
new thinking of the Department on a two-track system is welcome insofar as it
acknowledges that something is amiss. However the essential need-one-which
we cannot stress too strongly-is to develop a meaningful Senior Threshold.
Until we have a clear understanding of the mix of talents needed at the Senior
Level and criteria to be met to cross the threshold into the Senior Foreign Serv-
ice, we question the advisability of making extensive formal structural changes
in the cone system.
Question. What are your views on mandatory retirement at age 60? Can some
ether means be found which would meet the same purpose of requiring the re-
tirement of those no longer competitive for physical or other reasons without
appearing to discriminate on the basis of age?
Answer. As we have stated previously, we believe that the sole egress mech-
anism at the Senior Foreign Service level should be the limited career appoint-
ment of three years. If such a system were in effect, there would be no need for
other mechanisms, including mandatory retirement for age. In brief, retention
in the Senior Foreign Service would be based solely upon merit and relative per-
formance as determined by rankings by a board of peers.
Below the Senior Threshold and in the staff corps we believe that current
egress mechanism, including mandatory retirement for age should continue to
apply.
Question. Are you satisfied with the restrictions in the legislation on political
appointments?
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Answer. No. The 5 percent limitation in Section 321 on non-career appointments
in the Senior Foreign Service could easily be subverted by interpreting it to
mean that once a "career candidate" received status he or she would no longer
count as non-career. In a few years, you could have a "career" Senior Foreign
Service with over 20 percent of the officers political appointees who had come in
under the 5 percent rule, were given career status, and opened up another 5
percent to non-career appointments. The wording of Section 321 should read,
"The total number of non-career members of the Senior Foreign Service (offi-
cers who did not enter the Senior Foreign Service through the promotion pro-
cedure specified in Section 602a) shall not exceed 5 percent of the members of
the Senior Foreign Service". Moreover, a minimum probationary period should
be specified in Section 322 to ensure that any non-career applicant for career
status in the SFS be tested in a variety of circumstances before being entrusted
with "tenure" at the top. We suggest four years. Unless such a minimum safe-
guard is clearly established by the Congress, this mechanism will be repeatedly
abused by sucessive Administrations.
While we would not stipulate a specific numerical limitation on non-career
appointments to ambassadorial and equivalent positions, we would strongly urge
that the Congress establish an objective, non-partisan advisory board to screen
the qualifications of all such aspirants, political and career alike.
Question. Do you have any comments on the pay comparability question? Do
you agree with the AFSA proposal for 10 to 12 FS grades, rather than the nine
established in the bill?
Answer. The Hay Associates Study, mandated by the Congress, clearly dem-
onstrates that our junior and mid-level officers are paid significantly less than
their civil service counterparts with equivalent responsibilities. Since Foreign
Service Officers normally spend more years in grade than do their comparably
qualified Civil Service counterparts, this disparity is aggravated in yet another
dimension. There is no longer a debate, even within the Administration, on the
existence of compensation inequities. Rather, the decision which faces us now
is which of the options will best ensure equitable treatment for the Foreign
Service. We believe that AFSA's proposal takes into account all of the objec-
tive criteria and findings of the Hay Associates study on compensation. At all
(-vents. we strongly urge the Administration and the Congress to act to remedy
these inequities in some fashion as soon as possible. We should also note that
removing this inequity will not only help the Department retain the best offi-
cers now in the Foreign Service, it will have a significant impact on our ability
to recruit at least at the officer level the best possible talent and to achieve a
representative Foreign Service.
Mrs. SCHROEDFR. The next witness this afternoon is Mrs. Cynthia
Thomas, Foreign Service Reserve officer, accompanied by Philip M.
Lindsay.
We welcome you. We are delighted to have you with us and thank
you for your great patience for sitting through the afternoon.
STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA THOMAS, FOREIGN SERVICE RESERVE
OFFICER, BUREAU OF INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH, LATIN
AMERICAN REPUBLICS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mrs. THOMAS. Thank you very much for allowing me to appear be-
fore this committee. I once tried to appear before the committee in
1.972 and, was not very successful. Mr. Harrop, by the way, did appear
before this committee as president of the American Foreign Service
Association at that time, defending the Bayh/Cooper grievance
legislation.
I would like to state briefly that if things were to evolve in accord-
ance with the testimony of the three gentlemen, there would be a 14
percent annual firing rate. I am afraid you would very much need a
grievance mechanism of some nature if that were to happen, but that
is something else.
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384
I would like to introduce Mr. Philip Lindsay who is a retired For-
eign Service officer. He was the plaintiff in the historic case of Lindsay
versus Kissinger back in 1973 which resulted in the ruling guarantee-
ing that any officer about to be selected out for low ranking had a
right to a hearing. Mr. Lindsay subsequently has helped other officers
who have been selected out for time-in-class. They do not have any
form of relief in the State Department.
I am sure you are familiar with my testimony. I know your staff
is conversant with bills signed in the past in support of due process
legislation for the Foreign Service, and specifically the Fascell, Bu-
chanan, Hamilton bills. I did not invent it. It was a joint effort of
the Senate and the House and was approved by the Senate four times.
It was effectively killed by the former chairman of this committee
along with the Board of the American Foreign Service Association in
1975. It is public knowledge, I am not telling any tales.
There is a long history of very good support for a due process sys-
tem. The current legislation appears to be guaranteeing due process,
but it does not set forth an equitable system, and that is why I am
here. I do not speak out of an abstract concern but from direct per-
sonal experience with many Foreign Service officers who have been
hurt deeply by the lack of adequate procedures.
The existing grievance legislation is a sham; it is a disgrace. The
grievance staff places so many time bombs and hurdles before Foreign
Service officers that it takes a hearty soul to even begin. Two major
areas are not grievable subjects, erroneous denial of promotion and
improper selection out. I would like this committee to put forward
the original bill that Mr. Fascell and Mr. Buchanan sponsored which
included those major points. Page 17 of my testimony refers to a major
area in the current bill where due process is denied.
It is discouraging to realize how much time has passed while the
same problems persist. I have a particular problem with the State
Department but I would never put myself through that grievance
staff. I think that it is surely a way to get very ill. I have seen what
has happened to others.
I would like to include for the record a paragraph from former
Senator John Sherman Cooper's statement before this committee in
1972 in addition to one by Congressman Hamilton that appears on the
last pane of my testimony. Mr. Cooper talked about binding arbitra-
tion. He said:
If the grievance board resolves that a grievance is meritorious, in any case
it does not relate directly to promotion assignment or selection out of employees,
it shall direct the Secretary to grant such relief as the board determines proper,
and the resolution and relief granted by the board shall be final and binding
upon all parties. In the case of a grievance directly relating to any promotion,
assignment or selection out, the board shall certify its resolution to the Secre-
tary of State together with such recommendations for relief as it deems appro-
priate. The board's recommendations are to be final and binding on all parties
except that the Secretary may reject a recommendation "if he determines that
the foreign policy or security of the United States shall be adversely affected."
That is genuine due process. What exists are recommendations by
the Board. They have facts and figures to support that. their recom-
mendations have not been overruled very often, but then their juris-
diction does not include erroneous denial of promotion or improper
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selection out. For example, there is the case of Temple Cole, who had
two strokes and died while involved in the. grievance process. He was
absolved by a Special Review Board, but the Department refused to
take appropriate remedial action.
I watched this case and I was unable to help him. There has to be
a law to protect the rights of individuals. In the case of my husband
there was no redress at the State Department. I came to the Congress
and only then was relief granted in a private bill which took years
of work. I cannot recommend that route to anybody.
Mr. Lindsay, I would like you to talk to him.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Lindsay, did you have anything you would like
to add?
Mr. LINDSAY." Well, in going over this proposed legislation I have
been concerned about the grievance part of it because essentially the
grievance board that would be set up by this legislation would be an
in-house board just as the interim grievance board was. I believe it
would be better if outside civil service referees, examiners, or what-
ever were to adjudicate these cases rather than members of the for-
eign affairs agencies themselves who consciously or subconsciously
are affected by the superiors in the Department of State, AID, or
the ICA.
With the best will in the world I don't believe that these people can
give judgments that might be in opposition to the Department poli-
cies or the personnel policies or the. management policies in the De-
partment. I think this is my main problem with this legislation.
In addition to this, some of the members of the board being former
employees of the foreign affairs agencies have been with the board now
since it started in 1971. That is about 8 years now. They have made a
second career of this. I don't believe that they can act in the manner
which might jeopardize what was to them a second career. I know
that there are three of them on this board who have been with it since
1971. If we had people from outside agencies who did not have an ax to
grind or who would not be unduly influenced by the management per-
sonnel people in the Department of State and the other foreign affairs
agencies, I believe that the grievance procedures would be a good deal
more fair than they have been or are more likely to be under this pro-
posed legislation. That is why I am inclined to agree wtih Mrs.
Thomas that the original Bayh-Cooper legislation so far as the griev-
ance procedure is concerned would be much better than what we have.
That is about all I have to say on this.
Mrs. THOMAS. There seems to be a negative attitude surrounding
this. You heard from the previous three people, who reveal thinking
ypical of the State Department, how the new act is going to get a lot
f people out and limit their time in one form or another. Did any-
one ever think of keeping good people in and treating Foreign Serv-
ice officers with equanimity at the same time? Nowhere in the Foreign
Service Act can one find Mr. Walker's statement on the principle of
up or out. It is the creation of regulations.
I don't think that our Foreign Service is in such disarray. It would
have to be to warrant all these reforms. I don't think you need a
whole new Foreign Service Act. I think you need a grievance pro-
cedure.
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There is legislative history on this. The Senate debates have been
extensive. However, even the best legislation has to be administered
properly, and I don't know how that can be guaranteed. I don't know
when due process will finally come about, but I believe at some time
there will be a due process law in the State Department.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Could I ask what specifically you would change in
the grievance system?
Mrs. THOMAS. The whole system needs changing. The grievance legis-
lation in section 1101 is legislated procedures passed in 1975 and en-
acted in 1976. They were not in the original bill, they were a sham and
deception of the House as well as the Senate. It is not a genuine due
process law. It is simply the old interim procedures translated into law.
On my pages 11 to 17 of my testimony I describe the differences be-
tween what a person can grieve in the existing legislation and H.R.
1034, the original measure.
H.R. 1034 states "a grievance shall mean a complaint against any in-
justice or unfair treatment of an employee or aspect of his work situa-
tion arising from his employment or career status or any action, docu-
ments or records which could -result in career impairment damage,
monetary loss to the employee, deprivation of basic due process. It
shall not be limited to selection out or promotion." It can be anything.
They didn't like that down at the State Department and they never
would like that because the Lindsay case proved it was wrong to base
selection out on low ranking, as being high ranked didn't guarantee
promotion either. Charles William Thomas was consistently high
ranked and yet he didn't get promoted.
I am asking for the original due process legislation to be reinsti-
tuted again. There is an awful lot of support for that, by the way, in
the Senate and in the House.
[Mrs. Thomas' prepared statement follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA A. THOMAS, FOREIGN SERVICE RESERVE OFFICER,
BUREAU OF INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH, LATIN AMERICAN REPUBLICS, DEPART-
MENT OF STATE
Mr. Chairman : I ask that this Committee decline to report favorably on the
Foreign Service Act of 1979, H.R. 4674, until and unless a grievance procedure
guaranteeing the fullest measures of due process to all employees of the foreign
affairs agencies is contained therein.
A grievance procedure is provided under Chapter 11, p. 131, Section 1101, but
these procedures were the result of the impasse between the House and Senate
Conference Committee in 1975, which legislated essentially the interim grievance
procedures the Department of State was forced to implement in the wake of
public outcry, court cases, and Congressional Inquiries.
The statute tacked onto the Foreign Affairs Authorization Bill, November 29,
1975, was complicated enough, but the grievance system which it delineated was
further complicated by the requirements that a grievance be thoroughly con-
sidered and resolved administratively within the agency. The Department of
State itself held a series of workshons to help supervisors understand their roles
in Foreign Service Grievance Procedures. Teams were sent out to the field, spe-
cial newsletters were published, video tapes relating tales of "four typical griev-
ances" were prepared. The State Department said that at least 900 supervisors
were involved in these workshops. They stated in their own newsletter that these
workshops were needed to explain that the legislation that the Foreign Service
had at that time was the result of the failure of management and the exclusive
bargaining agent to resolve their differences.
In October 1976, the Department stated in an article authored by the head of
the Grievance Staff, "If we fail in these initial steps, we will be not only failing
the employees but inviting even more sweeping legislation and greater embarrass-
ment."
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This bandwagon of grievance hoopla actually amounted to a smokescreen to
cover the lack of genuine due process. The legislated, grievance procedures con-
tained in H.R. 46i4 provide a modicum of due process, but a little bit of due
process is not enough ! I would like to refer to a report prepared by your Com-
mittee entitled, "Background Material on Foreign Service Grievance Procedures,
July 26, 1972." The frontispiece contains a comparison between the proposed
Foreign Service grievance procedures at the time and interim regulations then in
effect in the Department of State, AID, and USIA. The bills numbers were H.R.
9188, Representative Hamilton ; H.R. 10304, Representatives Hamilton/
Buchanan/Fascell and others. On the Senate side, they were known at the time
as S. 3526, S. 3722, Senators Bayh/Cooper/Fulbright. The Bill in the House that
was identical to the Senate Bill was H.R. 15457 (Biester). There were numerous
other identical bills in both Houses. If you want to refer to Appendix A' of my
testimony, you can see that there are only slight variations between the Senate
and House versions. Later versions in both Houses came together in Septem-
ber 24, 1975, in H.R. 9805 and S. 1080.
The "Bayh Bill," as it came to be known in the Senate, was reported out of
the Foreign Relations Committee three times and passed by the Full Senate four
times. However, on the House side, action was blocked at the Committee level by
the former Subcommittee Chairman, former Congressman Wayne Hays, who
worked hand-in-glove with management officials of the Department of State on
this matter until he departed the Congress.
The reason I call your attention to the comparison of procedures prepared by
this committee in 1992 is to illustrate that, though the language is more compre-
hensive in the current grievance legislation, its limitations are almost as great,
and its denial of due process is nearly as keen as they were in the original interim
procedures. There is only one respect wherein the proposed law differs from the
one that was passed in 1975, and that is to provide a further deterrent to a
grievant by awarding the exclusive bargaining agent in the Department of
State, the American Foreign Service Association, the power to deny to the indi-
vidual his right to appeal to the appeal body.
I urge the Subcommittee to replace Chapter 11 of H.R. 4674 by the provisions
of the original "Bayh/Cooper/Hamilton/Buchanan/Faseell" proposed legislation
which was introduced as H.R. 9805, September 24, 1975, attached at Appendix F
in its original form.
Why all this fuss about due process hearings? I believe it is necessary to
tell you a little bit about the history. of these bills, numbering some twenty.
Many of the members of this Committee were not yet members of Congress dur-
ing the extended. debates in the early seventies in this very Committee under
the leadership of Mr. Wayne Hays.
The original Bayh/Cooper/Humphrey/Scott Bill was introduced in the
Senate in June of 1971, following the tragic death of Charles William Thomas,
a Foreign Service Officer. Despite an outstanding record of twenty years of
loyal and distinguished service, Mr. Thomas was dismissed for failure to be
promoted. As may be seen in the findings of the House Judiciary Committee,
published in H.R. 93-1535, Appendix B, Mr. Thomas was unable to appeal his
arbitrary selection-out because no appeal body existed.
The Director General was the final appeal authority in the Department of State
and no hearing in the Department of State was granted for sixteen years.
Despite the fact that there is an appeals procedure now, in reality the final ap-
peal body is still the Director General, or in actual practice, the Assistant Secre-
tary for Personnel. The reference to "the Secretary" in the legislation is in reality
a myth since the Secretary himself habitually delegates this authority downward.
Though the regulations state that, if the Department's Grievance Staff rejects a
grievance, a person can appeal to the Grievance Board, most major areas are not
grievable. Thus, due process becomes largely a sham. I have brought along a
chart which the Grievance Staff prepared for persons who may be planning a
grievance. I would like to ask if you can decipher it? What's missing is hospital
stops along the way. (See Appendix C)
I would like this Committee to request from the Grievance Staff information
on how many major grievances on selection-out, non-promotions, unfair re-
prisals, discrimination, and capricious, arbitrary, or other malicious acts arising
in the administration of the personnel system or performed by personnel author-
ities are brought before the Grievance Staff. Obviously, there aren't any. The
legislation is careful to exclude grievances based on these acts on the part of
the personnel authorities.
'All appendixes referred to in this statement are retained in committee files.
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Worse yet, the Grievance Staff's major role is to provide an extended delaying
and potentially cruel, career-damaging, informal consideration of a grievance
by forcing the victim to go to the very people that committed the acts com-
plained of. This provision "legislates" some of the cruelest aspects of the
Foreign Service personnel system, by ignoring the human element that a person
will risk his entire career by going to a Grievance Board only when he feels that
he is in extremis.
Furthermore, the Grievance Staff requires that the grievant submit his case
to them in writing for review before he can get to the Grievance Board to request
a formal hearing. I refer you to Appendix D, letter of FSO Robert Allen and his
accompanying situation. He believes that ample evidence could be gathered to
support a class-action suit against the Department for violations by the Grievance
Staff of the right to due process.
The legislation co-sponsored by several members of this Committee in prior
years provided for a clear and unimpeded path to the Grievance Board for a
review of a grievance upon its merits without subjecting the grievant to a
series of dangers, humiliations, and possible irreparable damage to his career.
If you will take a look at the Foreign Service Grievance Staff chart, Appendix C,
you will see the time bombs and hurdles it provides. It is a confusing and an
ambiguous maze and looks like a parcheesi board, or a game of chutes and
ladders. It should be abolished along with the sham of the Wayne Hays
grievance legislation.
It is essential to understand that the reason the House and the Senate were
not able to succeed in legislating due process of law for the Foreign Service was,
frankly, Mr. Wayne Hays. I do not want to dwell on the power of Mr. Hays,
but that power fed on State Department personnel managers and the American
Foreign Service Association hierarchy. I have already testified to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in 1976, the fact that Mr. Lars Hydle, the ap-
pointed (not elected) Vice President of the American Foreign Service Associa-
tion (without allowing a proposed referendum by the membership) deceived the
Congress into believing that the 7,000 members supported a compromise on the
Bayh/Hamilton/Fascell Bill.
The Department's inside corps of self-serving personnel managers have suc-
ceeded in maintaining a large measure of control over who is promoted, who is
not promoted ; who is selected out, who is not selected out; who receives plum
assignments, who does not receive plum assignments. Section 642 of the pro-
posed legislation would bring all career employees of the Department under
the selection-out system, insofar as relative performance is concerned, rather
than inst Foreign Service Officers as at present. Career staff and clerical em-
ployees have not heretofore been subjected to such procedures, which could
greatly overload and complicate the work of selection boards but give even more
power to the Department's personnel managers. A due process system for the
Foreign Service would change this radically. This kind of incest could no longer
flourish in the Department of State.
Personnel types hold many of the key substantial positions in our Embassies
around the world. Personnel types do not just stay in personnel, they serve in
key positions abroad, and they help each other. They have foisted this sham
of due process, and actually believe that they are doing an effective job. The
bruising and humiliation of gentle men and women who did not join the Foreign
Service to become grievants goes on daily. It makes me angry, but I am still
idealistic enough to believe that this Committee could provide a due process
system that would shake up the Department of State and allow all competent
officers a fair chance to survive. What amazes me is that, in the perpetuation
of this lack of due process and these complicated procedures. they have actually
thumbed their noses at the Congress of the United States. They don't even be-
lieve you will seriously address the matter. With the help of Wayne Hays, they
perennially foiled your efforts before.
I would like to read how a grievance was defined in various bills which five
people on this Committee either co-sponsored or supported. "Grievance means any
complaint against an injustice, unfair treatment of an employee or aspect of his
situation or from any action, documents or records, which result in career im-
pairment or damage, monetary loss to the employee, or deprivation of due process.
It shall include but not be limited to action in the nature of reprisals and dis-
crimination, actions related to promotions or selection-out : the content of any
efficiency report or related records ; separation for cause, denial of salary increase
within a class, etc."
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Now, let me explain how the present law operates.
1. Definitions of grievances were rewritten in so restrictive a manner as to
deprive grievants of the opportunity to protest the prevalent general injustices
and policies concerning a wide range of items such as promotions, misassignment,
discriminatory treatment or favoritism, and selection-out.
2. The present law restricts grievances against selection-out to involuntary
retirement caused by violations of law and regulation or to erroneous or falsely
prejudicial material in performance files, which is much less likely in the case
of selection-out for time-in-class, i.e., failure to be promoted within a specified
number of years. Officers selected-out for time-in-class often receive consistently
above-average performance reports over a period of years. On the other hand,
a mediocre or generally below-average officer may be singled out for the occasional
outstanding report. Consequently, the consistently above-average performer is
selected-out. The result has been a continuous loss to the Foreign Service of highly
talented officers. The system itself is at fault and should be subjected to a com-
plete overhaul. A fair and effective grievance procedure could play a useful role.
3. The choice of grievance board members gives too much of an in-house char-
acter to the board by permitting former employees of the foreign affairs agencies
to serve on It, including former members of the "interim" grievance board, or of
the Department's Office of Personnel. Most of these latter can be expected to
perpetuate the evils of the interim grievance procedures which an independent
and Impartial membership would have eliminated.
Section 1111 should also eliminate from grievance board membership all former
officers and employees of the Department or other foreign affairs agencies. While
retired Foreign Service employees are theoretically free from pressures exerted
by high management personnel and other Department officials, they, in fact, as
Foreign Service Reserve appointees, must please those high officials or find them-
selves removed from a desirable and lucrative position. Some of the Foreign
Service Grievance Board members have now been members for about eight years.
Board membership has become a highly desirable second career for them, which
they might be ill-advised to place in jeopardy through grievance decisions
strongly opposed by management.
4. Hearings are essentially closed instead of being entirely open to public
scrutiny. An open system would have helped to prevent some instances of De-
partmental abuse of due process rights.
5. Restrictions on the appearance of witnesses constitute denial of due process
to a grievant. The interim board has often been guilty of such restrictions for no
evident valid reason.
6. The Department's Grievance Staff has sought to deny access by grievants
to relevant documentation. This practice should be explicitly prohibited and
penalized In the law.
7. One of the many serious defects of the legislation is the failure to order the
reinstatement of officers wrongly selected-out, rather than merely to recommend
their reinstatement to the agency head. The agency head, despite a clear recom-
mendation by the Board, can refuse to reinstate an officer, no matter how meri-
torious his claim, on the pretext that the officer no longer meets the "needs of the
Service." Worse yet, any such adverse decision on the part of the agency head is
specifically excluded from judicial review. Keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen,
that it is not, in fact, the "agency head" who actually wields this great power,
but, once again, the middle-level bureaucrat in the Department's personnel system.
This is a most regrettable and ironic provision. The original impetus toward
legislation providing for a Foreign Service grievance procedure was furnished
by the tragic death of Charles W. Thomas eight years ago. Subsequent legislation
which provided for the relief of Charles W. Thomas, deceased, gave evidence to
the grievous wrong done to him by the Department of State. Furthermore, the
President of the United States, Gerald Ford, in a subsequent letter, expressed the
hope that legal measures would be enacted to prevent recurrences of the situation
which led to this tragedy. Yet, the grievance legislation finally resulting from
Mr. Thomas' death did not provide for the rectification of the wrong. In other
words, if he were still alive, he would still be unable to bring a grievance under
the present system. Moreover, if he could bring a grievance, the Secretary of
State (in actual practice, a lower administrative official) could refuse to rein-
state him for any reason whatsoever on the pretext that he and his skills were
no longer needed by the Foreign Service, and he would specifically be prevented
from appealing such an arbitrary decision in the courts.
I have been working In the Department of State eight years. I could relate to
you a number of telling cases. But I will talk about just one, FSO Temple Cole,
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who died recently. The answer to a question at the noon briefing on July 9, 1979,
regarding this officer was the following:
"Q. What is the status of the Temple Cole case?"
"A. In May of this year, several persons requested that the Bureau of Person-
nel look into the possibility of granting Mr. Cole a retroactive promotion on com-
passionate grounds. After a careful review of the situation, the Department con-
cluded that it does not have the legal authority to grant retroactive promotions in
the absence of a recommendation by anEEO Appeals Examiner or by a Grievance
Board or Panel (22 U.S.C. 8993B). Mr. Cole, himself, had not personally re-
quested such a promotion ; nor did he have any formal EEO complaint or griev-
ance against the Department pending at the time of his death."
I would like to point out to this committee that the several persons referred
to by the Department were : (1) myself : (2) a friend of Mr. Cole's, who was
the attorney that argued the Lindsay v. Kissinger case before Judge Gesell, result-
ing in the decision which is a part of the Foreign Service Act now-the right to
a hearing for anyone selected out for low ranking:* and (3) the third person was,
ironically, an assistant Secretary for Human Rights. But we did not approach
the Department on "Compassionate" grounds. We were seeking justice. We
believed that due process should be extended to Mr. Cole while he was still
alive.
I hope this Committee will investigate thoroughly the legal authority which the
Department says it lacks in the matter of Mr. Cole. Perhaps Mr. Cole's case will
provide the lever to break through the inhuman system that the State Depart-
ment has written for itself.
.-Attached as Appendix E is "Department of State Recommendation 1979, Spe-
cial Review Board Decision on the Appeal of Temple Cole, FSO-5." This docu-
ment speaks for itself.
The Department's own findings in this case were thoroughly exposed for their
blatant duplicity and subterfuge. The special review board found Department's
findings to be shallow and false. But, even though the impartial review board
overturned the Department's biased, unbalanced, and patently phony procedures,
this valuable and competent officer was nevertheless unable to gain a promotion.
He won his appeal and could remain in the service, but in the process he suffered
two heart attacks, and he died at the age of 49. The reason the Temple Cole
case is important in the process you are addressing is that the initial review of
Mr. Cole's case was carried out in a biased fashion with the obvious purpose,
not of giving him a balanced hearing, but only to provide some sort of admin-
istrative cover to justify removing him from the Service.
If you are able to read the Review Board's report. I feel sure you will see this
clearly. I believe that this Committee can and should, through appropriate leg-
islation, encourage and require the Department of State to judge grievants with
equanimity. The Department should not be allowed simply to try to get an
officer out of the way. Aside from exercising a degree of understanding and
concern for the officer, the Department, in seeking the real good of the Service
itself, should cease and desist from its current attitude of getting someone out,-
in order to get someone else in.
I think Congressman Hamilton said it well in hearings held in this Committee
in 1972. Unfortunately, these hearings were never published. I do have a portion
of one part of those hearings attached at Appendix G.
Mr. Hamilton said : "I think that selection-out is the most important decision
that can be made about a man's career, and at this point he certainly ought to
have a full right to a hearing." Mr. Hamilton further added that his right to
challenge selection-out is a very important one for the efficiency and the morale
of the rest of the Foreign Service.
I will be happy to provide this committee with further documentation and any
assistance I am able to afford to provide a system of justice for the Department
of State.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Buchanan, do you have any
questions?
Mr. BUCHANAN. I don't believe so.
I do appreciate your testimony, both of you. I do think it is quite
appropriate that you take a look at this in this context. I personally
"rhe case was Lindsay, Cole, Starbuck, and Poo V. $isainger, 367 F. Supp. 949 (DEC
1973).
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will review the positions of our earlier legislation over our existing
system. I certainly think we ought to look at this whole area of due
process in considering this legislation.
Mrs. THOMAS. That is all I ask. Thank you very much.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, I have a thousand questions which I won't ask
but let me just say first, Mrs. Thomas, that we appreciate you and Mr.
Lindsay appearing here to testify.
As far as that original bill is concerned, I got that bill so we could
have a hearing and that is all, period. Because you have been denied
for so many years in an effort to try to get something moving, I joined
Mr. Hamilton in that bill and ever since then we have been pursuing
everybody we can get our hands on to do something with this bill. I
am a little bit surprised frankly at this date. No, I am not. I am not
surprised at anything.
I hear a flat statement that, no, you don't need this bill and you are
probably right. We don't even need any laws, all we need are smart
people-reasonable, sensible, intelligent-who administer justly and
are human beings. Unfortunately, I never found any of that kind and
evidently you have not either so we are going to pass a law of some
kind.
I must tell you flat out I have great reservations about putting ad-
ministrative procedures on the outside of the administration which
is proceeding. If you are going to do that, you might just as well go
to court.
Mrs. THOMAS. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. So I have a great problem with that, Mr. Lindsay. I
am not saying that I am against it or for it or what, I am just telling
you how I think the probability runs. I don't know how you can have
administrative procedure with an appeal ultimately to the Secretary
and have final and full recourse to all the administrative action and
then go to court if you are not going to be within the administrative
hierarchy. That changes the whole concept of the Administrative
Procedures Act in my judgment. Maybe that is good, I don't know.
Mrs. THOMAS. The court business I think came through on the Sen-
ate side basically because there was such-trouble with getting any kind
of legislation. They were angry, I think.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand. It is just like this committee or any com-
mittee of Congress theoretically could hear every employee's case.
There is no way we could do that practically in even unusual cases. I
agree with you, I would not want to try to push a bill for anybody.
I tried once. It was vetoed by the President after I spent 8 years and
four sessions of Congress on it so I know what you went through. It
is not easy. Anyway, we will take a look at it. We will try to improve
it, not make it worse, that is for sure.
Mrs. THOMAS. Well, that is all that is asked because the mind is rea-
sonable and you people would like to be able to understand how things
work. Nobody can seem to understand the mechanism for the grievance
procedure that exists now. I don't.
Thank you very much.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you.
Mr. LINDSAY. Thank you.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. With that, we will adjourn.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the joint. subcommittees adjourned.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 9:30 a.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Patricia Schroeder (chairwoman, Subcommit-
tee on Civil Service) presiding.
Mrs. SCImOEDER. Good morning.
We welcome everyone to our joint hearings.
Our sole witness this morning is Ambassador Martin Herz, now a
professor at Georgetown. During the Ambassador's tenure with the
State Department he worked his way up in the Foreign Service from
being a junior officer to becoming Ambassador to Bulgaria.
We have your statement, Mr. Ambassador. We really appreciate
your taking the time to come and share your views with us. If you
would like to go ahead and summarize your comments for us, we would
appreciate it very much.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN F. HERZ, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR
TO BULGARIA
Mr. HERZ. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
My statement consists of a few pages, plus some annex material.
With your permission, I would request that the annexed material
be consigned separately.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Without objection.
Mr. HERZ. In expressing my appreciation to your committee for al-
lowing me to testify about one aspect of the proposed Foreign Service
Act of 1979, I wish to stress that I speak for no one but myself. I do
not represent an organization. But the ideas that I shall submit to you
coincide with those of a number of senior officers of the Foreign Serv-
ice who are still on active duty. I myself retired this year after 37
years of Government service, five of them in the Armed Forces and
over 32 in the Foreign Service.
I entered the Foreign Service at the bottom, in 1946,by the examina-
tion route, and advanced step by step to class 1, which I reached after
21 years. The most important position I attained was that of Senior
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. The most prestigious was that of
(393)
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Ambassador to Bulgaria. The most unpleasant though not unreward -
ing to the inner man, was that of Minister-Counselor at the American
Embassy in Saigon, after the Tet offensive in 1968. I was not, inci-
dentally, the first choice for that unpleasant position. I was offered it,
and accepted, after one or two others had turned it down. I was amazed
then, and am even more amazed now, that it should be possible in a
disciplined career service to turn down a responsible position just be-
cause it is extremely difficult or unpleasant.
Madam Chairman, I have perhaps a longer memory than my younger
colleagues in the Foreign Service, and perhaps even' than some of the
members of this committee. There is no merit in this, for it is entirely
a function of age. I happen to have lived through a period in our his-
tory when there was a sort of open season against senior Foreign Serv-
ice officers.
I am concerned that the proposed legislation will not only not guard
against a repetition of those dangerous days-dangerous not just to
the Foreign Service but to the country-but. that it will make it easier
for a future Secretary of State to "decapitate" the Foreign Service
through mass retirements of its most experienced and most valuable
members.
This is not a fantasy of mine. I have been there. I have seen it going
on all around me. I have seen friends and colleagues hounded out of
the Service. I have seen loyal Foreign Service officers, who had been
cleared again and again and again by the most rigorous security pro-
cedures, dismissed from the Service because the Secretary of State, and
those whom he had brought into the Department with him, did not
share their views and their outlook, and because those politically ap-
pointed officials were subservient to others who would make the Foreign
Service a scapegoat for our misfortunes and failures abroad.
You may say that McCarthy was an isolated phenomenon that is not
likely to be repeated. To this, I would reply that it is a misreading
of history to associate McCarthyism with only one man. There were a
number of Senators and Representatives who shared his attitudes and
who outlived him and who continued to do damage to the Service and
whose views were given very much weight in the executive branch. It
is thus not fanciful for me to look at the proposed legislation from the
point of view whether a future Secretary of State would be more, or
less, able to root out of the Service, people whom he might not like,
whose political views-real or imagined-he might not share, or whose
presence in the Service might be an embarrassment to him in his re-
lation with powerful Members of the Congress.
I find that there is serious ground for concern because the provision
for limited appointments to the Senior Foreign Service is tailormade
for unscrupulous use against senior officers suspected of holding views
divernent from those of an incoming new administration.
It should be understood that I am not attributing to this administra-
tion-certainly not to the present Secretary of State, also not to the
excellent career officers who have worked on this legislation-any in-
tention to open the way to some future inquisition or bloodbath of the
senior Foreign Service. These are all honorable men, inspired by the
hinhest motives. What I question is the wisdom of enacting legislation
which could be abused in a way that the framers of the legislation had
not intended or envisaged. This involves a question of public policy-
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whether it is wise, even if some benefits would flow from a certain
measure, to open the doors to possible abuse of those measures. I am
proceeding in my testimony from the assumption that the wise course
of action is to forgo some minor advantages if there is a major danger
that the purposes of the legislation could be perverted some time in the
future under circumstances that we cannot at present foretell.
At this point, I would like to make a short digression-it is only a
seeming digression. You, who have devoted so much time to the For-
eign Service and its problems and to this pending legislation, are of
course aware of the weaknesses of a career diplomatic service in our
political environment. Even when there are no accusations of dis-
loyalty, or even treason, as occurred in the late 1940's and early 1950's,
it is fair to say, I think, that the Foreign Service does not enjoy a good
press, that there are people, perhaps also in this House, who feel that
there is something wrong with it, and that somehow the Service is "un-
representative" of the United States.
From this attitude, which I submit is quite widespread or at least
latent in our society, it is not a very long way to distrust the Foreign
Service and associating it with policies that one does not like. It is no
secret, I think, that both the Kennedy and the Nixon administrations
came into office with a determination to place "their own men" at the
top of the Department and into key positions abroad, because they
distrusted the views and attitudes and orientation of the professionals.
What one Secretary of State called "positive loyalty," which he de-
manded from the Foreign Service, others would call conformity. And,
I submit, conformity in the Foreign Service is a very dangerous thing
because it is from the Foreign Service that the questions come up that
need to be asked, that the collective memory of our diplomacy can
assert itself, that the inconvenient counterargument needs to originate.
We need, in other words, a free play of ideas in the Department of
State and the Foreign Service. Thank God we have it now. We have
not always had it, and there is no reason to believe that it is fore-
ordained that we shall always have it. We may lose it if we aren't care-
ful. We have lost it before. The proposed legislation does not protect
it; on the contrary, it endangers that free flow of ideas, which of
course includes ideas of a contrary nature that another administration
might not cherish.
I believe that section '602, which makes retention in the Senior For-
eign Service a matter of the Secretary's appreciation of the "needs of
the Service to plan for the continuing admission of new members,"
and section 641, which allows the Secretary, by regulation, "to in-
crease or decrease such maximum time for a class . . . as the needs of
the Service may require" opens the way to mass dismissals of Senior
Foreign Service officers by some new administration that 'might be
convinced that they all "lost China" or "lost Africa" or were "pinks"
or "Fascists" or otherwise uncongenial.
What would Mr. Scott McLeod, whom Mr. Dullas brought into the
State Department as his head of administration and security, and who
was a friend and confidant of Senator McCarthy, have made of such
a wide latitude given to a Secretary of State. He would have revelled
in it. He would have exploited it to the utmost to get rid of Foreign
Service officers who were suspected not of 'being Communists but of
being left-leaning, excessively liberal, wooly-minded do-gooders who
didn't understand the reality of the threat.
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What might be the future policy in whose name another open season
might be declared? Perhaps it might be on the opposite end of the
political spectrum. But whatever end of the spectrum it might come
from, it would be bad news for the country, for the freedom to express
unpopular ideas, and for the principle that a professional career serv-
ice is in any case the servant and not the master of foreign policy.
Let me make clear what I meant by the last remark. I believe that it
is, and was, profoundly mistaken to believe that Foreign Service
officers represent political parties or political tendencies. The paranoid
attitude, for instance, of Mr. Ehrlichman, who saw the Nixon admin-
istration's foreign policy sapped by disloyal career public servants,
was not justified. The Foreign Service loyally implemented Mr.
Nixon's policies just as it had implemented those of his predecessor
and his successors. It is a nonpolitical service. But that is precisely
what makes it so suspect in the eyes of some of the political chieftains
in the White House.
"Positive loyalty" is not, after all, so very far removed from the
performance checks that have recently been ordered in the White
House and which require loyalty, once more, to be checked out. It is
only a relatively small step from vetting someone's loyalty to evaluat-
ing his usefulness according to how much he or she agrees, or en-
thusiastically supports, certain policies. In other words, the danger is
always present. It is only a matter of degree. So, it is not so farfetched
to imagine that some future administration might want to make a
clean sweep of the Senior Foreign Service because it is associated, in
the minds of that new, incoming administration, with failures and
idiocies or total. benightedness. or worse-sympathy with our enemies,
or inveterate blindness toward something that is particularly impor-
tant to such an administration.
George F. Kennan, in remarks that I request- permission to include
in the printed version of my testimony,, stated the problem of the
diplomat in a democratic society in terms that are both insightful and
graphic. He noted that-
This diplomat has to recognize that he is himself something of an anomaly
within the traditional structure of American Government-something for which
there is not, and could not be, any fully natural and accepted place. He is not
politically appointed-a circumstance which is sometimes a source of irritation,
one suspects, for politicians, who see him as preempting positions and salaries
that might otherwise be used to reward political supporters.
Moreover, as Kennan points out, the very qualities that make a
diplomat effective in a. foreign environment involve features of his
appearance and manners and even thinking processes which are per-
ceived as alien by his own society.
To many people in journalistic and political life-
Wrote Kennan,
this habitude du monde is, particularly disturbing, because it seems to imply
on the part of the professional diplomat a certain deliberate self-distancing from
those great currents of mass reaction and emotion to which American society is
uniquely vulnerable and by which journalists and politicans, above all others,
are carried, of which they are the spokesmen, and the reflection of which they
find their inner security.
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In an earlier interview, of which I would also ask your permission to
insert longer excerpts into the record,' Kennan observed that journal-
ists and legislators frequently-
expect the FSO to be a sort of foreign exhibit of American virtues and manner-
isms, as they themselves conceive them. They expect him to cultivate popularity
and to use this popularity for the "selling" of American outlooks-rather than
policies-to other peoples.
They do not realize that his main tasks normally have to do with other govern-
ments rather than with peoples ; that his function is really that of an effective
and unobtrusive intermediary, assuring the accuracy and usefulness of com-
munication among governments ; that he needs sometimes to take on something
of the personal coloration, not just linguistically but in manners and way of
thinking, of those with whom he has to communicate ; that a strident and expan-
sive Americanism is often an impediment in this respect ; and that in his quality
as an effective intermediary he is bound, if lie is to be useful, to acquire a certain
inner detachment toward both sides, which does not imply any disloyalty to his
own.
I would submit that no one can long pursue the Foreign Service profession
without acquiring a certain critical detachment toward the behavior and policies
of all governments-including his own-a detachment which respects the prej-
udices and limitations of vision by which that behavior and those policies are
often inspired, but does not necessarily share them.
Congress and the American public must ultimately choose.
Kennan says in this passage of the interview-
either they want effective intermediaries, effective executors of American policies
abroad, and effective observers as well, in which case they have to tolerate a cer-
tain amount of cosmopolitanism in the personal makeup of these people, or they
must be prepared to forego the advantages of a highly effective diplomatic arm.
It will not have escaped you that the desirable characteristics that
Kennan saw in a Foreign Service officer, come from "long pursuit"
of the career. In other words, I am not at all sure that they are fully
developed in the younger and more vigorous and less skeptical and
more ambitious officers who so often strike the political leaders as more
"with it," as sharing their own ideas more visibly and articulately, as
being, in other words, "in step with the times." This is precisely what
I am warning against, and I think it is not an excessive extrapolation
from the remarks of Kennan that I have just read to you to say that he,
too, sees merit in experience, in the acquisition of that skeptical de-
tachment which does not come readily to ,younger people.
Section 612 of the proposed legislation would make one of the
criteria for promotion or retention in the Senior Foreign Service not
only the usual performance evaluation reports, commendations,
awards, reprimands, et cetera, but also "records of current and pro-
spective assignments." What a strange expression-records of pro-
spective assignments. How can there be a record of a prospective
assignment, except a notation that Mr. or Ms. X is in line for a new job,
and that Mr. or Ms. Y does not have a job in prospect.
What could not Mr. Scott McLeod, the agent of Senator Joe Mc-
Carthy in the State Department, have made with such a provision as
it applied to, say, Mr. John Stewart Service or Mr. John Paton Davis
who were accused of having "lost China." Lest you believe that no such
cases occurred in more recent years, I may recall that there was also a
man in the early 1960's who was suspected or accused of having "lost
Cuba" and from whom the American Foreign Service Association-of
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which I was then a member of the board of directors-unsuccess$tllr
intervened because the administration did not want to give him any
prominent assignment for fear of flak from hostile Senators and
Congressmen.
It could have been easily certified for such a man that there was no
prospective assignment for him-and out he would go. He, and others
in his category, would be on an escalator to the guillotine, but it would
not be his value to his country that would decide whether the blade
would fall, but a political judgment whether he was "controversial"
or an embarrassment.
That, I submit, is coming very close to politicizing the senior ranks
of the Foreign Service. Fearlessness at the bottom of the career pyra-
mid is easy. Fearlessness at the top is sometimes also easy, particularly
when you approach retirement. But fearlessness near the top, seeing
how the heads roll of those who do not know how to make themselves
agreeable to a new administration, could be a very dangerous thing to a
diplomatic career and is likely to give way to conformity. We need,
and will always need, a variety of senior Foreign Service officers, with
widely divergent viewpoints. We need people who ask the inconvenient
questions, who recall the things that others have forgotten or cannot
remember because they haven't experienced them as a senior diplomat
has.
Theoretically, by shortening the time in grade at the top and certify-
ing to the nonavailability of onward assignments, by letting terms of
able senior officers expire simply because they aren't showing enough
"positive loyalty," it would not take much time for some future Secre-
tary of State, perhaps one who might be well-intentioned but only
weak and inclined to yield to pressure from Capitol Hill, or the press,
or the White House, to decimate, indeed to decapitate the Senior For-
eign Service. This is an abuse that should not be allowed, that should
be carefully guarded against in the legislation.
Perhaps I may be permitted to add one final observation. I am my-
self a member of the American Foreign Service Association. As al-
ready remarked, I was a member of its board of directors. At one time
I was even its vice chairman. I write frequently for the Foreign Serv-
ice Association's organ, the Foreign Service Journal. I am in full sym-
pathy with its principal goal, the protection and enhancement of pro-
fessionalism in our diplomacy. But I do not regard it presently as fully
representative of the Foreign Service, if only for demographic rea-
sons : It has more young members than old ones. This is not a criticism,
it is a statement of fact.
Older officers, who now almost seem to be ashamed of being older
and more experienced, are an endangered species in today's Foreign
Service. Their percentage. is constantly going down. But it is a fact of
life that to the younger officers, there are always too many older ones
holding positions of responsibility. I ,felt the same way when I was
young. I am not criticizing it. All I am saying is that the virtues of
having a corps, goodly proportion, of seasoned older officers available
and on hand to make their input into the policy-formulation process
and its executive-the virtues of that are not normally perceived by
younger people.
That, I think, is why I have been encouraged by a number of older
officers to come forward and make these observations about the pro-
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posed legislation which, coming from them, would seem self-serving.
My career in the Foreign Service is behind me. It has been a good
career. I think today's service is excellent and should be protected
against some future ravages by irresponsible politicians. If my testi-
mony has sensitized you to that danger, if I have been able to point
out that the danger is not fanciful, then I have, perhaps, rendered a
service not only to your subcommittee but also the Foreign Service
that I love, including the younger officers who may be inclined to
worry about testimony such as mine because it tends to be in favor of
lengthening the escalator to the guillotine.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[The material referred to follows:]
EXCERPT FROM "FOREIGN POLICY AND THE PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMAT" BY GEORGE F.
KENNAN, IN THE WILSON QUARTERLY, WINTER 1977
[Secondly], this diplomat has to recognize that he is himself something of an
anomaly within the traditional structure of American government-something for
which there is not, and could not be, any fully natural and accepted place. He is
not politically appointed-a circumstance which is sometimes a source of irrita-
tion, one suspects, for politicians, who see him as preempting positions and
salaries that might otherwise be used to reward political supporters. But he is
also not, or at least should not be, a member of that great body of lower-level
serving personnel known as the civil service, which constitutes the overwhelming
majority of those, other than the political appointees, who serve the government.
But between these two categories of people who work for the government-the
political appointees and the domestic civil servants-there is no third category,
familiar to American politicians and to public opinion generally, to which the
Foreign Service could be assigned.
With minor exceptions the United States has, no tradition at all of a self-
administered career service within the civilian (as distinct from the military)
sector of government. To the extent, therefore, that the American Foreign Service
remains a career service, immune to political appointment and resistant to control
by the domestic civil service, it tends to become an object of bewilderment and
suspicion in the eyes of Congress, of the political parties, and of much of the
press. And yet the legislators and the party politicians, in particular, are precisely
the people on whom the Foreign Service is of course dependent for its appropria-
tions, its salaries, and the physical premises and facilities with which it has to
work.
Underlying this organizational isolation, and in part explaining and rein-
forcing it, is an even more widespread and serious Foreign Service burden-
namely, a deeply ingrained prejudice against people who give their lives profes-
sionally to diplomatic work. This prejudice operates within the political establish-
ment in the first instance but also with much of the press and portions of the
public.
The late French ambassador, Jules Cambon, in the celebrated series of lectures
he once delivered before the French Academie (published in 1926 under the title
of Le Diplomate), observed that "democracies will always have ambassadors and
ministers ; it remains to be seen whether they will have diplomats * * * [Di-
plomacy] is a profession that requires of those who practice it some cultivation
and a certain habitude du monde [roughly : sophisticated view of the world]"
But, he went on, to find people with these qualities, and to bring them together in
a professional service, requires a certain process of selection ; and this, he
thought, would always be disagreeable to democratic tastes because "democracies
have a difficult time tolerating anything that resembles selection."
However true these words might be with respect to other countries, they could
not be more true of the United States, particularly at this time. We live, as we
all know, in an age when egalitarianism is the prevailing passion, at least in many
intellectual and political circles. We seem to stand in the face of a widespread
belief that there is no function of public life that could not best be performed by
a random assemblage of gray mediocrity. For people who see things this way, the
idea of selecting people for any governmental function on the basis of their
natural suitability for that sort of work must be rejected ; because to admit that
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some people might be more suitable than others would be an elitist thought-
hence inadmissible.
And not only is selection per se distasteful to many Americans, but the par-
ticular qualities that would have to underlie any proper selection for professional
diplomacy are especially odious. The very idea of this habitude du monde of which
Cambon spoke is repugnant to many because the experience essential to its
acquisition is one that cannot be obtained within our society ; it can be obtained
only by residence and work outside it.
To many people in journalistic and political life this habitude du monde is
particularly disturbing, because it seems to imply on the part of the professional
diplomat a certain deliberate self-distancing from those great currents of mass
reaction and emotion to which American society is uniquely vulnerable and by
which journalists and politicians, above all others, are carried, of which they are
the spokesmen, and in the reflection of which they find their inner security. To
them, the outlook of the diplomatic professional is a challenge-all the more
provoking because it is one they cannot meet on its own ground. And the result
of this is that the diplomat comes only too easily to be viewed as a species of
snobbish and conceited elitist, depayse, estranged from his own country and
countrymen, giving himself airs, looking down upon his fellow citizens, fancying
himself superior to them by virtue of his claim to an Pso*eric knowledee and
expertise and which by the very fact of its foreign origin challenges the soundness
and adequacy of their world of thought.
And in this way there emerges, and finds partial acceptance, the familiar stereo-
type of the American diplomat as a somewhat effeminate, rather Anglicized figure
(the British are usually made victims of our inferiority complexes), as a person
addicted to the false attractions of an elegant European social life, usually to be
found at parties, attired in striped pants, balancing a teacup, and nursing feelings
of superiority toward his own country as he attempts to ingratiate himself with
the hostesses and the officials of another one. The fact that there is no substance
for this stereotype-the fact that what little substance it might once have had
passed out of our lives decades ago, the fact that this particular professional
dedication involves today a great deal of hard work, much discomfort, much lone-
liness, a dedication to the service of the nation far beyond what most people at
home are ever asked to manifest, and, last but not least, in many instances no
small amount of danger-all this is of no avail. The stereotype exists. It persists.
It is gratifying to many egos. It will not soon be eradicated.
The multiplicity of critics and detractors of the American Foreign Service
would not be so serious, perhaps, if it were balanced by any considerable body
of defenders; but this, unhappily, is not the case. The Department of State,
which theoretically controls the Service and ought properly to defend it, has
neither the ability nor the will to act very effectively in this direction. The ability
is lacking because, of all the departments and agencies of the United States, the
Department of State is perhaps the only one that has no domestic constituency-
no sizable body of the citizenry, that is, which understands its function and is
concerned for it, no special interest groups who stand to profit by its activity and
are ready to bring pressure to bear on Congress on its behalf. Lacking these
things, it has little domestic influence. And the State Department's own will to
defend the Service is also often lacking, because the Department is normally
headed and administered by people without foreign-service experience-some-
times even by people who share the very prejudices and failures of understanding
just referred to.
EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE IF. KENNAN BY JOHN F. CAMPBELL,
IN FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, AUGUST 1970
QUESTION. When men like the late Senator Joseph McCarthy attack the Foreign
Service for "disloyalty," isn't their main objection really that the Service is some-
thing of an intellectual elite and its members pick up eccentric and "un-American"
habits from spending most of their lives mixing with foreigners and living
abroad? Isn't this the real reason many congressmen can't stand the State
Department?
Mr. KENNAN. Yes ; I think there is, most unfortunately, a conflict between the
qualities of character and personality that are most effective in the Foreign
Service and those that most commend themselves to some people in Congress and.
in general, to the American press.
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In part, this arises from a suspicion on the part of congressmen and journalists
that people so subtly different from themselves cannot fully respect them and
must in some way be looking down on them. But there is also the fact that very
few people in our domestic life-almost none, in fact, even among the most expe-
rienced journalists and legislators-have any proper understanding of the real
function and requirements of the Foreign Service. They expect the FSO to be
a sort of foreign exhibit of the American virtues and mannerisms, as they them-
selves conceive them. They expect him to cultivate popularity and to use this
popularity for the "selling" of American outlooks (rather than policies) to other
peoples. They do not realize that his main tasks normally have to do with other
governments rather than with peoples ; that his function is really that of an
effective and unobstrusive intermediary, assuring the accuracy and usefulness of
communication among governments ; that he needs sometimes to take on some-
thing of the personal coloration, not just linguistically but in manners and way
of thinking, of those with whom he has to communicate ; that a strident and
expansive Americanism is often an impediment in this respect; and that in his
quality of an intermediary he is bound, if he is to be useful, to acquire a certain
inner detachment toward both sides, which does not imply any disloyalty to
his own. I would submit that no one can long pursue the Foreign Service profes-
sion without acquiring a certain critical detachment toward the behavior and
policies of all governments-including his own-a detachment which respects the
prejudices and limitations of vision by which that behavior and those policies are
often inspired, but does not necessarily share them. Congress and the American
public must ultimately choose, either they want effective intermediaries, effec-
tive executors of American policies abroad, and effective observers as well, in
which case they have to tolerate a certain amount of cosmopolitanism in the
personal make-up of these people, or they must be prepared to forgo the advan-
tages of a highly effective diplomatic arm.
It is a great pity that this touch of cosmopolitanism (it is generally very slight)
is so often taken for effeminacy or lack of affection for one's own country. It
is a poor sort of manliness that has to document itself by expansive and bois-
terous behavior ; this latter, in fact, is usually the mark of inner insecurity and
uncertainty. And the variety of patriotism which has never known exposure to
the challenge of different ways of thought and behavior is not necessarily the
strongest form of patriotism. One thinks, here, of Milton's words (from the
Areopagitica) :
"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed,
that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where
that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."
I am afraid that before many Americans can hope to have a really effective
Foreign Service, they will have to overcome certain forms of narrowness and
provincialism in their own attitude toward the tasks and requirements of
Foreign Service work.
QUESTION. Franklin Roosevelt seemed to have very little use for the Foreign
Service. American diplomats were not consulted about most of the major wartime
decisions, and Roosevelt traveled to Casablanca and Yalta without senior State
Department advisers. He once wrote in a memorandum that the successful diplo-
mat is "a man who is loyal to the Service, who does not offend people and who
does not get intoxicated at public functions." Was it Roosevelt's personal tem-
perament that made him avoid diplomatic advice, or was it the feeling that a
President can never be sure of receiving from professional diplomats the kind of
intense loyalty he gets from his political supporters?
Mr. KENNAN. I am not sure of that answer to this question. Sometimes the
reluctance to recognize any virtue in the Foreign Service officer's expertise con-
ceals a painful awareness of one's own lack of it. In FDR's case, I think there
was something personal, as well. He disliked social prominence and pretension ;
and he probably associated these things with the Foreign Service. He had little
or no understanding for a disciplined, hierarchical organization. He had a highly
personal view of diplomacy, imported from his domestic political triumphs, and
great confidence in his personal ability to wheedle anybody into anything. His
approach to problems of foreign policy was basically histrionic, with the Ameri-
can political public as his audience. Foreign Service officers were of little use
to him in this resneet. His taste was for the dilettante. and he liked boldness in
the people around him. He disliked cautious, experienced men ; and it is true
that a Foreign Service officer, since he is a professional, has the same kind of
caution bred of experience that a good doctor or lawyer has.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much, Ambassador. We really
appreciate your viewpoints.
Would it be fair to summarize that what you are saying is you
don't like the Senior Foreign Service executive service? Is that what
you are saying?
Mr. HERZ. Madam Chairwoman,.I see merits in having a Senior
Foreign Service. I think they are marginal, but they have real
substance.
However, if the price of having a Senior Foreign Service is to give
the Secretary of State so much leeway, and so much flexibility that
he could be arbitrary in the matter of retention of people in the Senior
Foreign Service, then it would be not worth having.
I am not proposing that the idea of a Senior Foreign Service be
scrapped. I am proposing that it be rethought, and that it be hedged
in by safeguards that would make it very difficult or impossible for
a future Secretary of State to abuse that system.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I would like to know what specifically in the legis-
lation you see as the loophole allowing abuse.
The Senior Foreign Service was specifically put in to parallel what
we have in the civil service, which is the Senior Executive Service.
SE'S allows no more than 10 percent to be political anpointees,,does
allow award for merit, but other than that it doesn't allow career civil
servants to be thrown out.
The special extra pay in SES comes on the basis of merit. It is a
management tool to reward those at the senior levels so they are just
not all in the pack together and there is no incentive to do a better job.
We heard the same kind of criticisms that you are making when we
were talking about this in reference to the civil service. What power
is there that you think is so comprehensive and so sweeping that the
Secretary of State is going to have that he can really terrorize the
whole Senior Foreign.Service.
Obviously everyone who doesn't get a pay increase is going to be
mad and think they have been abused. But they are not fired on the
other hand, either. So what specific power does-he have? Would you
deny the 10 percent?
Would you deny the right to grant merit increases to some people
who perform better than others? Would you deny the sabbatical?
'"That would you deny in there?
Mr. HERZ. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am sorry. It is 5 percent in this bill, excuse me.
Mr. HERZ. I support the 5 percent. I do not address myself to the
question of merit increases, which may be a good idea. I have not stud-
ied that aspect. I certainly do not oppose the ideas of the sabbatical.
The features of the proposed legislation that I find subject to possi-
ble abuse in the future are to be found in the following sections.
Section 602(b). "Decisions by the Secretary on Promotions into and
retention in the Senior Foreign Service shall take into account the
needs of the service to plan for the continuing admission of new mem-
bers, and for effective career development and reliable promotional
opportunities."
I find that in the absence of a legislative history that explains limi-
tations upon these criteria, these are so vaguely stated as to be subject
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to arbitrariness on the part of the management of the State Depart-
ment at some time in the future.
The needs of the service to plan for the continuing admission of new
members is a rubber term. It could be expanded or contracted as the
Secretary desires.
Section 612, at the end of paragraph (a), refers to the strange phe-
nomenon that I adverted to in my testimony, in my statement, where
it speaks of the Selection Board's taking into account not only the
usual records of performance evaluation and commendation, awards,
et cetera, but also "records of current and prospective assignments."
I think on this point I can be more categorical. I believe the words
"and prospective" should be stricken from the bill because it means
that if you don't like Mr. X, who might be an excellent officer, who may
have superb credentials, who may have distinguished himself in the
Foreign Service, showing good judgment, a good executive, but for
some reason he becomes an embarrasment to the new administration, or
is perceived as an enemy, or is too softhearted, or too hard-nosed, it
could be simply certified that there are no prospective assignments for
such a man, and with no prospective assignments for him, there would
be no reason to promote him or to retain him because it would have
been certified that the man is unemployable.
Now, I think the burden of my earlier statement was-
Mr. PASHAYAN. Excuse me, would you entertain a question at this
point.
Mr. Hnnz. With pleasure.
Mr. PASHAYAN. Very simply-suppose the person you are describ-
ing is inadequate in all respects, rather than being distinguished.
Mr. HERZ. Thank you. I think this enables me to clarify my point.
Section 612 says that the Selection Board should take into account
* * * records of the character, ability, conduct, quality of work, industry,
experience, dependability and general performance of members of the service,
including reports of Foreign Service inspectors, performance evaluation reports
of supervisors, records of commendations, awards, reprimands, and other disci-
plinary actions, and (with respect to the Senior Foreign Service) records of cur-
rent and prospective ,assignments.
So here you have the possibility only in the case of the Senior For-
eign Service of not only these other qualifications being taken into
account, but specifically' the added criterion of whether there is a job
available for him.
Mr. PASHAYAN. But that is not my question. You were saying that in
the case of a Foreign Service person who is very distinguished, that
this factor alone might work to his disadvantage.
My question to you is, suppose that we have a dud. Doesn't this then
enable us to weed out a dud? Surely all of your colleagues are not dis-
tinguished, as distinguished as yourself.
Mr. HERZ. Congressman Pashayan, I understand your question. Let
me try and get at it in perhaps a different way.
I am assuming that if the man is a dud his record will not show that
his character, ability, conduct, quality of work, industry, experience,
dependability, and general performance have been outstanding.
Mr. PASHAYAN. Well, now, that is not true.
Mr. FASCELL. I was going to say that is a bad assumption.
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Mr. PASHAYAN. If anything, the paperwork shields these kinds of
things more than reveals them.
Mr. HERZ. We have to create, if we don't have it, for the Foreign
Service a system of evaluation that is as objective as we can make it.
Mr. PASHAYAN. Let's take your assumption for a minute. I am will-
ing to do that for the sake of argument.
Let's take your assumption for a moment and suppose that we have
somebody who is well qualified. Why would any administration want
not to use that man?
Mr. HERZ. Well, perhaps you were not yet present when I made my
earlier statement. We have had cases
Mr. PAST-IAYAN. Perhaps I was, but perhaps I disagree with it. Go
ahead.
Mr. HERZ. We have had cases in, the history of our country, in the
history of our Foreign Service, where people were treated as unassign-
able, not because they were duds but because they were a political
embarrassment.
Mr. PASHAYAN. Let's take that point for a moment. Are you sug-
gesting that an administration does not have a right to deny assign-
ment to somebody who is an embarrassment to them? Is it good
policy to have personnel in positions that are in fact embarrassments
to any given administration?
Mr. HERZ. May I answer the question perhaps by rephrasing the
question. You say should an administration have the right to get
rid of a man who is an embarrassment. I would say it depends upon
what kind of embarrassment the man is.
If he is an embarrassment because he is incompetent, that is one
thing. If he is an embarrassment because he does not conform, then
you can deny him policymaking positions, you can deny him access
to the policymaking officials of the Department of State who are poli-
tically appointed.
But you cannot deny him, you should not be able to deny him his
entire career because there should be a place for such a man in the
Foreign Service, a place of responsibility in the field perhaps where
he is able to serve honorably and make his abilities available to his
country. It depends entirely on how you define the word embarras.Q-
ment.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Pashayan, can we go back to questions?
Congressman Fascell, do you have some questions?
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you.
I just want to ask one question. The theory of the Senior Foreign
Service is that when you get to level 1, or whatever it is, you have
now put in or should have put in a full career, by most standards be-
cause by that time you have spent almost 25 or 30 years in the Service.
Now, the theory of the bill, as I understand it, is that, at that
moment in time the career officer voluntarily decides whether or not
he wants the advantages and the disadvantages of the Senior Foreign
Service.
Mr. HERZ. That is correct.
Mr. FASCELL. Do you think that is a valid theory, at that point?
Mr. HERZ. You pay a price for it.
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Mr. FASCELL. Agreed. But it is voluntary. Nobody is forcing them to
do it.
Mr. HERZ. No. The country is paying a price for this arrangement.
My question is
Mr. FASGELL. Wait a minute. You are entitled to your opinion. I
am not being argumentative. There is the other side of that coin.
You say the country is paying a price. That is debatable right there.
I cannot leave it on the record as an indisputable fact.
Mr. HERZ. May I continue my reply to you, sir?
Mr. FASCELL. Sure.
Mr. HERZ. Because I have not finished. This was intended
Mr. FASCELL. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I didn't think I had
finished my question. But go ahead.
Mr. HERZ. This was intended as an introduction to a longer reply to
your question, which is very thoughtful and which I very much ap-
preciate. I understand the point of view that if a Foreign Service
officer has put in a career, has been successful at it, and is admitted into
the Senior Foreign Service, he gives up certain things. He gains things
and he. gives them up.
Then you say why should he not then have the risk of having only
a limited appointment. Why is this asking so much? Did I under-
stand the question correctly?
Now, my reply to that would be that, of course, the individual is
paying a price. I was not concerned so much with the individual.
Those individuals, Mr. Chairman, represent a national asset. We
don't have all that many of them. When you have devoted a 20-, 25-, or
30-year span to foreign affairs, you are a repository of experience, of
knowledge, you know where the bodies are buried, you know where
mistakes have been made before, you know what works and what
doesn't work, you have experience with certain countries, and with
certain situations, you have lived through crises. You are capable of
giving good advice.
If you have gotten that far, I assume you have not gotten that far
by just polishing the apple. You have gotten that far in a very com-
petitive system, because you are better than others, and you have
more to offer than others.
When you reach that point, what I regret, and what I suspect, and
what I would like to warn against, is that the bill would transform
such an officer into a politician. He will not be a good politician.
Mr. FASCELL. The best politicians I ever met were the bureaucracy
in State.
Mr. HERZ. I would rather have them be nonpartisan, observers, ad-
visers, and executants of policy, than amateur politicians on Capitol
Hill,.
Mr. FASOELL. Mr. Ambassador, you know, I feel in this colloquy
that you and I are wrestling with a shadow.
I ran against .Toe McCarthy, That is the way I got into the Congress.
A one-man Senate committee, abuses of dignity. So, I am jest as con-
cerned as you are about the possibility of abuses to an individual, and
the loss to the country of great talent.
I have always seen the other side of the coin, and this is the shadow
I am talking about.. I am assuming you are going to have an honest
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406
Secretary of State. I am assuming you are going to have a sensible
President. I am assuming you are going to have people in the Depart-
ment who have ? got the interests of the country at heart.
Now, maybe I am naive, but I don't think I am any more naive than
you are in asking for those kinds of qualities that you perceive in
Foreign ServieeThf0icers. We cannot write all, of that into .legislation,
you know that.
Now, the question is how strong a safeguard can we put into this
bill to do what you want to do. I am not sure of that. I am willing to
explore it.
I understand the point you are making. You don't want a Secretary
of State or one of his assistants to run amok, depending on how much
political power they have been able to garner either in the White
House or in the press.
But, I don't want to close the door either to the problem that we
have been facing for years, which is that you have able, dedicated
senior diplomats at the top level, who have compacted the State De-
partment for the last 30 years.
I don't necessarily want to clean house. I just think we need to have
some kind of an orderly flow. How do you achieve that? I don't know.
Mr. HERZ. I think there are many ways in which that orderly flow
can be achieved, short of giving the Secretary of State the kind of
powers
Mr. FASCELL. We will have to examine that. I don't know that we
can close the door entirely. We are going to have to give the Secretary
some discretion.
Mr. HERZ. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think what you have just said
materially satisfies the concerns that I have expressed. It seems to
me-I have not come here to ask you to throw out the legislation. I
have not come here to accuse the present Secretary of State or anyone
else of being irresponsible.
Mr. FASCELL. No; your points are quite clear.
Mr. HERZ. If some safeguards can be added to this bill to take into
account these concerns which come from experience, I wish, Mr. Chair-
mail, that you had beaten Senator McCarthy a little earlier than you
did.
I can think of a few others in the same category. I can think of
some who were in the State Department, not ill-intentioned but weak
and bending to the political winds of the time, and thereby very much
inclined to do away with valuable public servants, who could have
given them good advice, but who were looking 'for conformity rather
than for that good advice.
Mr. FASCELL. I think, speaking philosophically, you put your finger
on it. There is a suspicion, the minute you set apart people as a class,
and give them prestige, and they speak a different language or have a
greater capability, or they all come from Harvard, or they all become
independent, they try to become apolitical.
I don't care how you clothe them in terms of the security of the
country or their patriotism, there is going to be a healthy skepticism
of an elite society within a society.
Mrs. ScHROrDER. Mr. Chairman, I think we are going to have to
interrupt this for a minute. We have a vote on the Postal Service Act.
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I know some of us are going to have to stay over and work on that,
but I thank you for coming.
Mr. FASCELL. I will come back.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are there any other questions of the witness?
Mr. FASCELL. If you excuse us, we will come right back.
Mr. HERZ. Thank you very much.
[A brief recess was taken.]
Mr. FASCELL [presiding]. The subcommittee will come to order.
Thank you for waiting. We rushed back as quickly as we could.
Mr. Leach, do you have some questions?
Mr. LEACH. Just a couple. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can sorry
to bring you back.
Mr. FASCELL. No; that is all right. I am delighted.
Mr. LEACH. I have a couple of questions. Your description of the
Foreign Service as becoming younger rather than older perplexes me
a little bit.
It is my understanding that entering Foreign Service officers are of
older age than they have ever been before and that there has been a
genuine lack of egress of senior officers. Statistically can you back
up your allegation that it is a younger Foreign Service?
Mr. HERZ. My remarks were addressed to the Foreign Service As-
sociation which, as I said, for simply demographic reasons, if you
have a career pyramid with more people at the bottom than at the
top, it is perfectly normal that the bulk of its membership would be
younger rather than older. We have members like myself and other
retired officers who make an input into their decisions, but when push
comes to shove, I think the association would be more likely to espouse
the interests of junior and middle-grade officers.
Insofar gas the service itself is concerned. I believe. the figures, which
I do not have here available, from the Department of State, indicate
that there are less senior officers now than there were 2 years ago and
that there were less senior officers 2 years ago than there were, say, 5
years ago.
There has been a problem of impaction at the top. I think it has
been largely taken care of. I don't see this as a problem at the present
time. I may be wrong.
I think the figures should be studied, but I would be leery, Congress-
man, of accepting the idea that the endemic problem of the Foreign
Service has been impaction at the top.
What we have seen is the perfectly normal reaction of younger offi-
cers, which we find in organizations of all kinds that there is just not
enough room at the top.
They want what they call the dead wood weeded out, and I am cer-
tainly in favor of weeding out the dead wood, but an efficiently work-
ing selection-out system should be a matter of routine that should
go on year in and year out.
I think the selection should not stop at the top. Career ministers
should be just as much subject to selection out and relative perform-
ance, relative merit, and relative capabilities should certainly play a
major role in these decisions.
But I don't think that the main purpose, the main merit of the
legislation, is going to do away with this problem. There will always
be this dissatisfaction.
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Mr. LEACH. George Ball, in a column this morning in the Washing-
ton Post, describes the diplomatic service today as adopting 15th cen-
tury techniques, specifically, the involvement in personal diplomacy
of Secretaries of State, Presidents, Vice Presidents, and national
security advisers. He argues that this is a departure from the scheme
first discovered by the Italian city-states.
He also notes that we have recently seen a new type of personal
diplomacy where we have ambassadors with political bases of their
own who act against instructions, a la Andrew Young, or who an-
nounce publicly that their instructions are nonsense and who desire
to act independently of the Secretary of State, a la Robert Strauss.
Would you characterize this administration's diplomacy as non-
professional? Do you think there are legislative safeguards against
this practice that can be devised or is that a matter beyond the scope
of legislation?
Mr. HERZ. This is a very thoughtful question that would be deserv-
ing a longer reply than I am able to give you. I read Mr. Ball's article
in today's Washington Post. I think that essentially he is correct.
Whether it is 15th century diplomacy that we are practicing or just
bad diplomacy, I don't know, but, well, I suspect myself of perhaps
being a little preindiced in favor of the career Foreign Service when
I agree with Mr. Ball.
[The article referred to follows:]
[From the Washington Post, Friday. Sept. 7, 19791
SHOWBIZ DIPLOMACY'
(By George W. Ball)
We have set back diplomacy by 500 years. Prior to the 15th century, kings
and princes did business with one another by elaborate personal visits and then
by special envoys. But in 1455, an Italian city-state first established a permanent
diplomatic mission in a foreign sovereignty and that practice was soon uni-
versally adopted. American diplomacy has now reverted to the pre-15th-century
pattern.
Consider our current application of these medieval arrangements. We use our
embassies as observation posts, while reducing our ambassadors to messenger
boys. All important business is transacted by direct visits of the president or the
secretary of state or even of that aberrant diplomatic mutation, the national
security adviser. Lately we have resorted to highly publicized missions by
American personalities primarily known for their prowess in other fields.
Accompanying those dignitaries is a restless retinue of press and television re-
porters to record their between-innings banalities enlivened with the informal
indiscretions of an anonymous "official on the plane." All that provides rich
fodder for the afternoon news shows, but it seriously impedes the conduct of
a coherent foreign policy.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was the first to exploit the "do-it-
yourself" potential offered by Air Force One and its siblings, while Henry
Kissinger seems never to have understood any other method. But, unhappily, the
addiction did not stop there. A reversion to an ancient diplomatic procedure that
began as an expression of two hypertrophied egos is being perpetuated by a
more modest successor, who has even made a pilgrimage to the terrorist leaders
of the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front. Meanwhile, restricted by the episodic limita-
tions implicit in this method, our government has repeatedly overlooked de-
teriorating relations with countries not in the immediate spotlieht. while per-
mitting dangerous situations to develop without timely or adequate attention.
The prospects for drift and breakage inherent in these atavistic d;plomatic
procedures were intensified when Kissinger's impressive theatrical flair trans-
muted his virtuoso diplomacy into something novel and seductive : Diplomacy as
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Showbiz. During his spectacular season on stage, his attempt to bring two na-
tions into agreement became an enthralling dramatic event, with the secretary
of state pitting his skills (and America's pocketbook) against an Israeli and
Egyptian bargaining power that was progressively inflated by the process. Thus
the world was wonderfully entertained by America's "miracle worker" flying
like Superman between Middle Eastern capitals, while press and television
breathlessly reported, "He's down ; he's up, he's gaining momentum !" and po-
litical commentators sounded like sportscasters.
Showbiz diplomacy has notable limitations. It destroys the scope for quiet and
subtle maneuver available to a less flamboyant approach, such as that habitually
practiced by the most skillful American negotiator of modern times, Ellsworth
Bunker, who repeatedly achieved prodigious feats of mediation at almost no ex-
pense to the American taxpayer by never letting his own ego become a factor in
the bargain. But an even more important defect of the method is that it narrows
the goal of the contest to the conclusion of the agreement-almost any agree-
ment-without sufficient regard for its cost or content. Kissinger's most the-
atrihal achievement, Sinai II, was, for example, an unprecedented real-estate
transaction in which the United States paid Israel an exorbitant price, both in
money and political commitments, for a huge acreage of desert sand and a few
oil wells that it then paid the Egyptians to take over.
The Camp David Accords-which might properly be called "The Son of Sinai
II" or, more succinctly, "Sinai III"-expanded that transaction to include the
balance of the desert with additional huge payments to each side. Of course, that
was not all President Carter intended ; he had initially set out in great good faith
to produce a comprehensive Middle Eastern agreement that would go to the heart
of the dispute-the settlement of the Palestinian issue. But, here again, the pres-
sures of a theatrical diplomatic process constricted the focus to the narrow ob-
jective of getting both sides to sign something-an objective that became all-
important when the president engaged his personal prestige in the effort. The
agreement that emerged has, by polarizing the Arab world, prejudiced any ulti-
mate solution of the festering, substantive problems of the Arab-Israeli dispute
to the disadvantage of the United States.
Recently we have witnessed a further variant of Diplomacy as Showbiz : the
Prima Donna as Diplomat. Those two well-publicized personalities,.Ambassadors
Andrew Young and Robert Strauss, have both shown their disdain for the ac-
cepted rules of diplomacy. Young put the cap to a long career of free-wheeling
by talking against instructions to a PLO representative, while Strauss returned
from a mission to the Middle East with the announcement-unprecedented in
diplomatic history for a serving ambassador-that he had never believed in the
mission on which he had been engaged and was unprepared to accept instruc-
tions from the secretary of state.
It is not surprising that the chancelleries of the world have reacted to all this
with a nervous mix of belly laughter and disbelief. No doubt, if we continue to
practice our modern version of medieval diplomacy as showbiz, replete with well-
advertised stars addicted to improvisation, while our permanent diplomatic es-
tablishment atrophies from desuetude, we can make foreign policy more enter-
taining. But at what cost to American leadership? Even if it's less fun, shouldn't
we onhe again move boldly forward to the 15th century?
Mr. HERZ. Yet I have seen too many ad hoc appointed ambassadors.
or political officials in the Department of State going out, wading
into the quagmire because they felt that their own visibility was more
important at home, the press exposure was something they craved,
and then the mess that had to be cleaned up afterward.
I think there is a place for top-level diplomacy. I don't mean to say
that our career diplomats or other appointed ambassadors can carry
on all the diplomatic business, but I believe the tendency toward sum-
mitry, the tendency toward the special emissary, what the Vatican
calls the intervenor, the man who was sent out to supersede everybody
on the spot, I think this is probably something that would be wise to
curb insofar as possible. Yet I think the legislation that we have before
us cannot really curb this phenomenon because these are decisions
made by the President which he has the right to make, I believe, under
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the Constitution. They may be good decisions. They may be bad de-
cisions, but it is very hard to legislatively impose impediments to them.
Obviously as a career officer, I like the idea of a restricted number
of noncareer appointments in the Senior Foreign Service.
I have very little confidence that an administration that is bent upon
circumventing this provision will not find a means of doing so. Still,
I think it is a step in the right direction. We are the only major coun-
try which has so many amateurs in top positions in its diplomacy
abroad.
I am not questioning that we must have politically appointed, well
selected, politically sensitive, hopefully politically experienced people
at the top in the State Department and around the President because
these are the people who have to pay the price politically for things
that go wrong.
I accept this. I think this is part of our system. I think it is right and
it is also effective, but when it comes to sending ambassadors abroad,
I don't want to mention names, but two of the earliest appointments
of this administration were to Mexico and Saudi Arabia and they were
both people, honorable people, no doubt, who had no visible experience
in foreign affairs and even less experience in the regions of Latin
America and the Arab world. Yet these are exceedingly important
positions.
So I think the curbing both of the intervenor-type of ambassador
and of the amateur is very desirable, and if there were any legislative
way of imposing obstacles to them I would certainly support it very
strongly.
I would like to make one additional remark on this subject because
I don't wish to be misunderstood. Obviously a career officer like myself
can be expected, not just expected, but rightfully expected, to have a
certain prejudice in favor of the career as against the politically ap-
pointed ambassadors and for that reason I wish to pay tribute to three
ambassadors with whom I have served who were not career people :
Ambassador David Bruce, Ambassador Douglas Dillon, and Ambassa-
dor Ellsworth Bunker, were among the finest diplomats our country
could possibly have had. So I have no prejudice against politically
appointed ambassadors, provided they are well selected and well quali-
fied and have germane backgrounds and have natural skills that com-
mend them for that appointment.
It has not always been so and I am sorry to say that the present
administration is not much better, a little better, but not much better
than its predecessors in that respect.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much. We are going
to have to go answer this rollcall, but I want to express our apprecia-
tion to you for your testimony, for answering our questions and point-
ing out those specific areas where you think this bill could be improved.
Thank you very much.
Mr. HERZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. The subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m., the subcommittees adjourned.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 11:45 a.m., in room 2200, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Dante B. Fascell (chairman of the Subcommittee
on International Operations) presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. We meet today to continue our hearings on the pro-
posed Foreign Service Act of 1979. Our witness today is Ms. Janet
Lloyd, Director of the Family Liaison Office at the Department of
State.
Following that, hopefully, we will get to Mr. Ben Read, the Under
Secretary of State for Management.
I want to apologize. We have all got too much to do and all of us
are supposed to be in three places at once. We certainly appreciate
your patience in waiting on us. We have had to delay this meeting
several times already this morning. We are anxious to hear you and I
know you have your testimony.
Without objection, we will put it all in the record. You may pro-
ceed as you like. If you want to summarize the main points, you cer-
tainly may. If you want to read it all, that is all right.
STATEMENT OF JANET LLOYD, DIRECTOR, FAMILY LIAISON OFFICE,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. LLOYD. Madam Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I will summarize on
the basis of our having little time left this morning.
fore you today to tell you about our daily operations and our plans
for the future. We appreciate the continuing interest and support you
have shown us since the opening on March 1, 1978.
We share everything together. At the end is Joan Scott, who is a For-
worked for an earlier Director General. Without her, we would never
ave gotten off the ground.
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Sitting next to her is Susan McClintock, our career counselor, who
has set up the skills talent bank. And our newest addition is Bernice
Munsey, an educational counselor.
Mr. FASCELL. Let.me commend all of you who have participated in
this, and also Mr. Read and the Department for the willingness to try
this out and make it work.
Ms. LLOYD. Thank you.
I will go very quickly over this, if you want to follow along with
me. We do divide our time roughly 50-50 between personal services
to individuals and special projects in what we consider policy mat-
ters. We receive a tremendous number of inquiries every day, either
people coming into the office, by telephone, or by letter.
We figure as best we can, we get an average of 40 inquiries per day.
I have listed here the areas in which we get asked questions. We re-
spond to the inquiries.
Mr. FASCELL. I am surprised it is so short. [Laughter.]
Ms. LLOYD. Well, we left a few out. [Laughter.]
We respond to the inquiries we have information on, and we do
have a great deal of information in the office. But if it is a question that
should go to someone in the Department, we refer the person directly
or to a community resource.
We do strongly feel our major responsibility is to the individual
seeking help in our office.
On page 3 I have listed three rather typical examples of the kinds
of, I guess you would call them, social service activities we get in-
volved in. The first one was a particularly interesting case in that it
was a widowed Foreign Service spouse who returned to the United
States with three tiny children in a very difficult situation, obviously.
We were able to help her with housing. schooling, money, and
all sorts of things in the beginning. And the happy ending to the
story is shs herself became a Foreign Service officer and is back over-
seas with her three children serving our Government.
I will skip the other examples here in the interest of time.
The project and policy issues to which we have devoted a great
deal of our time this year I have also listed. We now have 58 Family
Liaison offices overseas, which is particularly exciting to us because it
is a grassroots movement that is needed in the field.
It is, we believe, having a tremendous effect on improving morale
overseas. That has obviously taken a good deal of administrative
time.
We have set up the skills bank which you had supported from the
very beginning. We now have 863 spouses, both male and female, still
predominantly female, but we have quite a few male ones also.
Susan McClintock, with the help of the rest of us, has run two
very good career counseling workshops for spouses based in the United
States, both in terms of finding jobs here in Washington as well as
what they can do to help themselves locate employment when they go
overseas.
We have assisted with the writing and publication of the A-1 and
A-2 nonimmigrant visa applications, which you may or may not know
is the procedure we are working on to provide for reciprocity with
other nations overseas. They will go into effect on September 21 and
there will be a great deal of work subsequently to make them effective.
But it is en route, anyway.
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We have worked with personnel in the Foreign Service Institute
to write up regulations for the monthly child care grant that was
passed last year allowing $300 for child care so that spouses might
pursue language training before being assigned overseas.
We worked recently on a pilot project with the Foreign Service
Institute. To train spouses on a space available basis to work as part-
time employees overseas in counselor and in budget and financial man-
agement work.
These are areas which are often short-handed overseas and trained
spouses can help out during peak and vacation periods. So we are train-
ing spouses who will be fully trained to take on these responsibilities,
probably as "PIT" (part-time intermittent) employees.
When the Iranian evacuation took place, it was the largest and most
disruptive evacuation in our history. There seemed to be no method
with which to help families deal with the terrible discumbobulation.
So, under the auspices of our offices, there was an Iranian Evacuation
Task Force set up which I believe did a great deal to help individuals
through that time.
We in our office have strongly supported additional mental health
services for our people overseas. These services are now easily avail-
able to the American population at large here in the United States.
Therefore, with the great shortage of available mental health serv-
ices overseas, a great need is felt.
Management has made a decision to establish two new positions for
regional psychiatrists. We already have an excellent one, Dr. Rigamer,
based in New Delhi. We have one whom I believe has just gone out
to Vienna who will serve the people in Europe and will go to Moscow
and spend a week, a month in Moscow helping the people there.
We are seeking another one to be based in Monrovia to help work
regionally through the African Bureau.
We have published a number of useful documents which are listed
here. Certainly, the "Washington Assignment Notebook" has been
very well received, and we publish quarterly something called the
"Flo Update," which is an effort to get out to-I say families often-
but what we find is everyone uses our services, employees as well, to
keep people abreast overseas of legislative changes and other changes
that might affect them.
We spend a great deal of time addressing different groups. I par-
ticularly want to mention the inspection teams. We are a very small
office, as you can see, with 58 offices overseas, and they are growing by
leaps and bounds. I am rapidly losing my ability to stay in touch
with them individually. Consequently, we work very closely with the
inspection teams when they go overseas so that they carry informa-
tion from us.
They talk with families, spouses, and employees and bring informa-
tion back to us. It works very well as a communication link. I think
we are particularly proud of the fact that the Family Liaison Office
is a model. There has never been one like it before. We have been
sought after by the National Security Agency. Mette has spoken twice
and will speak again to their onsite managers.
DIA and CIA have been interested, and I have had a
number of meetings with people here and people from diplomatic
personnel officers overseas who are undergoing many of. the same dif-
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ficulties we are and have sought out the Family Liaison Office as a
model to see whether they could use it in their countries.
As I mentioned earlier, there are 58 counterpart offices overseas. I
have listed what they do in my written statement. Each office has
developed a unique personality of its own and is responsive to the
needs of that particular post. There are no two of them which are
similar, which I think is wonderful.
In conclusion, more or less, we feel a lot has been accomplished in
a year and a half but there are a lot of important issues that remain
to be solved. The Association of American Foreign Service Women
has already testified on the subject of benefits for divorced Foreign
Service women and employment issues. These are certainly two of the
most important issues facing the Foreign Service spouse at this
time.
The pending bill on benefits to divorced spouses, if finally cleared
by the OMB, does not go as far as the Association advocates in these
or other areas. I would suggest myself a careful consideration of the
relative advantages and disadvantages of Mrs. Schroeder's bill and the
present proposal with OMB.
I would like to speak briefly about the Foreign Service national
American family member plan approved by the Congress last year.
As you well know, it has taken quite a long time to implement. There
are a number of reasons for that. It began as an experimental pro-
gram on December 30 and went worldwide on July 3. It is growing
quite rapidly now.
Although we still have only three people working in those positions
in Kingston, Paris, and Bonn, there are, and it has gone up since I
wrote this,.now 25 jobs designated to be used in this way.
Perhaps you will be interested in knowing why it is working in
certain areas or not later, but I think I will skip over that for the
moment.
If this program is to fulfill its purpose of expanding job oppor-
tunities for Foreign Service spouses overseas, we have attached special
importance to the provision in section 333(a) of the Foreign Service
Act which would authorize payment at American Foreign Service
schedule rates.
It is not working in areas where the local wages are simply much
too low to be interesting to spouses.
I have gone on here to discuss representation a little bit, travel
allowances for the children of divorced and separated parents.
We are also interested in seeing the provision of a survivor annuity
to all current surviving former spouses of deceased members of the
Foreign Service. And there are several health insurance matters that
should be looked into.
That is a brief overview, I think, of what we do in the office. Tradi-
tionally the Foreign Service has sought to be representative of the best
aspects of American life and culture as it pursues the conduct of
foreign relations abroad. The Foreign Service family has long been
an essential element of our diplomatic presence overseas, but the
Foreign Service is not just a career or a job. It is a way of life. It is
a way of life that depends not only upon the work and dedication of
its employees but also upon the goodwill and sense of community of
its family members.
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In recent years, the Foreign Service family, even more than the
American family in general, has been deeply affected by the changing
roles and aspirations of women, by new and harsher economic realities
and other changes in our society which have undermined its authority
and severely tested its strength.
The modern, highly educated American family in which both hus-
band and wife work and share in the responsibilities of the home and
parenthood does not easily fit into the traditional world of diplomacy.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for family members to reconcile
the realities of American life with the demands of diplomatic life and
culture abroad.
In response to the emerging concerns of the Foreign Service family,
the Family Liaison Office was created. I believe the office is and will
continue to be an effective agent of change that will help our Foreign
Service to better meet the realities and responsibilities of the future.
That concludes my statement.
[Ms. Lloyd's prepared statement follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANET W. LLOYD, DIRECTOR, FAMILY LIAISON OFFICE,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Madame/Mister Chairmen, members of the committees, the Family Liaison
Office welcomes the opportunity to testify before you today-to tell you about our
daily operations and our plans for the future. We appreciate the continuing
interest and support your committees have given the Family Liaison Office, both
before and since its establishment on March 1, 1978.
I would like to begin with a quick introduction of the members of the Family
Liaison Office staff :
Mette Beecroft is our Deputy Director. We work closely together and share all
the various responsibilities of the office.
Joan Scott is a career Foreign Service secretary. She brings us professional
experience having served in six countries overseas as well as having worked pre-
viously as secretary to a Director General of the Foreign Service.
Susan McClintock is a Career Counselor and has responsibility for the develop-
ment of the Skills Bank.
Bernice Munsey has recently joined the office as an educational counselor. Pre-
viously she was the Director of the Foreign Service Educational and Counseling
Center.
Both Susan and Bernice work part-time.
The Family Liaison Office divides its time roughly 50-50 between personal
services to individuals and special projects and policy questions. Let me start by
explaining what we do for individuals at the counseling and referral level.
COUNSELING AND REFERRAL
People make inquiries of the office either in person, by telephone or by letter.
On an average day we respond to approximately 40 requests for information or
help. The inquiries we receive are enormously varied and fall generally into the
following categories : Spouse employment, schooling, divorce related issues, child
care, correspondence courses, mental health referrals, domestic relations lawyers,
adoption, car rental, temporary housing, alcoholism, retirement, consumer infor-
mation for overseas, department procedures such as obtaining a pass or enrolling
for a course, allowances, insurance-health, property and transit, shipping, State
and Federal taxes, language and functional training for spouses, visa applications
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for foreign born family members, traveling with animals, and nursing home
facilities.
We respond to the inquiries that we feel competent to answer and in other
cases put the requestor directly in touch with the responsible person either in
the State Department or the community. We feel strongly our major responsibility
is to the individual who comes to our office with a personal problem.
Let me cite some examples of the social services we have been able to provide.
Recently a young Foreign Service spouse with three small children was
widowed in Africa. She returned very abruptly to the United States with no
home, no schools for the children and little available cash. We helped her locate
these essential resources during a time when she was in emotional crisis. The
happy ending to the story is that she subsequently became a Foreign Service
officer herself. She is now overseas with her children, working in one of our
missions.
We have aided a single parent who returned suddenly to Washington needing
heart surgery for her 14-month-old child.
We have been able to intervene on behalf of a family overseas which learned
their teenage son had been arrested in the United States for driving a motorcycle
while drunk. The family was too far away to arrange for bail from family
resources quickly. We were able to get a lawyer and locate funds for his release.
Our case load covers all the problems found in any community, including divorce,
alcoholism, drug abuse, kidnapping, wife abuse and delinquency. In the Foreign
Service, however, these problems often become more intense because assistance is
not readily available at post.
SPECIAL PROJECTS AND POLICY ISSUES
The Family Liaison Office has spent much of its time this year in projects
and policy issues of great importance to the well being of families and Foreign
Service employees generally.
1. We have written guidelines, established policy and procured PIT (Part-time,
intermittent and temporary) positions for the establishment of 56 Family Liaison
Offices overseas or FLO offices as we call them. Recently we sent to all over-
seas posts a videotape describing our services.
2. We have set up a computerized Skills Bank, and now have a record of 863
spouses, both male and female. We have run two career counseling workshops
per year, as well as several Community Action Workshops designed to train
future Coordinators for overseas FLOs.
3. We have assisted with the writing and publication of the A-1 and A-2 Non-
immigrant Visa Regulations which will become effective on September 21. These
regulations will allow the dependents of foreign diplomats to work in the United
States on condition that they grant our spouses similar employment opportunities
in their countries. These new regulations stem from Sec. 401 of the 1978 Author-
ization Act.
4. We have cooperated with Personnel and the Foreign Service Institute on the
promulgation of regulations providing for a monthly child care grant of up to
$300.00 for spouses during language study under Section 708 of the 1978 Au-
thorization Act.
5. We have worked with the Foreign Service Institute to set up a pilot project
to study the possible benefits to be derived from offering to spouses functional
training in Consular and Budget anti Financial Management work, so that they
will be fully trained to fill in during shortages overseas. This fall, spouses will
also be able to enroll in the newly redesigned General Services Officer Course.
6. Under the auspices of the Family Liaison Office the Iranian Evacuation Task
Force was set up to help employees and Family members better cope with the
many difficulties they encountered after their evacuation to this country.
7. We have supported increased mental health services for our people over-
seas and are delighted with Management's decision to establish two new positions
for regional psychiatrists, one to be based in Vienna and one in Monrovia.
8. We have also written and published a "reentry guide" to the Metropolitan
area known as the Washington Assignment Notebook and a Career Job Informa-
tion Resource packet which was sent to all posts. In addition, we publish the FLO
Update on a quarterly basis, providing information to the fie:d on all of these
activities.
9. To explain the philosophy and purpose of the Office we regularly address the
following groups : General orientation at ? Foreign Service Institute for new em-
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ployees ; administrative and personnel training courses, ambassadorial briefings,
advanced consular course, inspection teams, the family workshop, and inter-
national development interns for AID.
We have also addressed other Government agencies such as the National Se-
curity Agency and are in contact with the CIA and the DEA. Many foreign
nations face similar problems in their own diplomatic corps, and have sent mem-
bers from their embassies and foreign offices to study the Family Liaison Office
as a model.
OVERSEAS FAMILY LIAISON OFFICES
Since the opening of the Washington FLO, 56 counterpart offices have opened
overseas responding to a grass roots movement supporting this concept. The
offices are involved in many different aspects of the mission operation, particu-
larly in the welcoming and orientation of newcomers. Some of the services pro-
vided by the overseas FLOs are : Sponsorship and welcoming, housing lists,
community activities, teenage clubs, orientation programs, language programs,
special workshops with the regional medical officer, maintenance of local skills
bank, and job development.
However, each office has developed a unique personality of its own and is re-
sponsive to the needs of that particular post.
CONCLUSIONS
We feel that a lot has been accomplished in a year and a half, but there are a
number of important issues that remain to be resolved. The Association of Amer-
ican Foieign Service Women has already testified on the subject of benefits for
divorced Foreign Service women and the employment issue. These are the two
most important issues facing the Foreign Service spouse at this time. Although
the pending bill as finally cleared by the OMB does not go as far as the Association
advocates in these or other areas, I would like to state my own personal endorse-
ment of the AAFSW's testimony and the need to take certain additional steps
by law or regulations to advance family interests in the years ahead.
The Foreign Service National-American Family Member (FSN/AFM) Pro-
gram approved in the Congress last year has taken a long time to implement. An
experimental program was begun on December 30, 1978 and on July 3, 1979 the
pilot program was expanded worldwide. At present there are 3 American family
members working in Kingston, Paris and Bonn. Twenty-one more jobs have been
designated for the program and will be filled shortly. As the program's manage-
ment advantages become recognized, the program will expand further.
The principal problem with having the program fulfill its purpose of expanding
job opportunities for Foreign Service spouses has been the provision that they
be paid at local salary rates. For that reason we attach special importance to the
provision in Sec. 333(a) of the 1979 Foreign Service Act which would authorize
payment at American Foreign Service schedule rates.
Representation expenses.-As I am sure you are aware the spouses who accept
the traditional representational role get precious little thanks or recognition for
their work. Especially the senior level wives may put in a tremendous amount of
work, which rebounds to the benefit of the United States. It would be a small, but
symbolic gesture to repay them for at least their out-of-pocket expenses, if not
for their time, on those occasions when they entertain to further the interests of
the United States.
I would like to offer some personal suggestions.
1. I believe the time is rapidly approaching when we should entertain the no-
tion of a salary or some other compensation for those senior wives whose man-
agement and representational services are considered important to the success
of Government goals.
2. We need travel allowances for the children of divorced or separated parents
so that the children may visit the employee parent who may not have custody.
The rising divorce rate is a reality for the Foreign Service, as well as for the
nation, and it is unfair to penalize the Foreign Service child by preventing him
from visiting one of his parents because of distance and travel costs.
3. I would like to see the provision of a survivor annuity to all current surviv-
ing former spouses of deceased members of the Foreign Service provided that
the former spouse has been married and in the Foreign Service for 10 years and
has spent 6 of those 10 years overseas.
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4. I am also anxious to rectify two problems which relate to health insurance.
Regulation currently excludes dependent parents or parents-in-law of a Depart-
ment employee from receiving health benefits even while overseas. On the other
hand, these same dependents are eligible for other allowances such as travel. We
would like to see the regulations expanded to include dependent parents and
parents-in-law while they are overseas.
5. I would also like to see some provision made for continued health coverage
for divorced Foreign Service wives calculated on community based rates. Cur-
rently, the inability to pay for health insurance is of enormous concern to this
group of women.
This concludes a description of the activities and interests of the Family Liai-
son Office.
Traditionally, the Foreign Service has sought to be representative of the best
aspects of American life and culture as it pursues the conduct of foreign relations
abroad. The Foreign Service family has long been an essential element of our
diplomatic presence overseas. But the Foreign Service is not just a career for a
job-it is a way of life. It is a way of life that depends not only upon the work
and dedication of its employees, but also upon the good will and sense of com-
munity of its family members.
In recent years the Foreign Service family, even more than the American
family in general, has been deeply affected by the changing roles and aspirations
of women, by new and harsher economic realities and other changes in our so-
ciety, which have undermined its authority and severely tested its strength. The
modern, highly educated American family, in which both husband and wife work
and share in the responsiblities of the home and parenthood, does not easily fit
into the traditional world of diplomacy. It is becoming increasingly difficult for
family members to reconcile the realities of American life with the demands of
diplomatic life and culture abroad.
In response to the emerging concerns of the Foreign Service family, the Family
Liaison Office was created. I believe the office is and will continue to be an effec-
tive agent of change that will help our Foreign Service to better meet the reali-
ties and responsibilities of the future.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Ms. Lloyd, for that very con-
cise overview with respect to the Family Liaison Office, which in a
short time, it seems to me, has done a very commendable job.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Would you yield for a moment, Mr. Chairman?
you for such a fine beginning, and also I would like to especially com-
mend you and Under Secretary Read for what has happened since we
went worldwide in July with the Foreign Service national American
family member program. I
Ms. LLOYD. We are very pleased with that.
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Obviously, you have sold me totally. [Laughter.]
I mean I would like to change it around and put them in charge of
diplomacy. [Laughter.]
No; maybe we aren't ready for that. I want to ask you whether or
not you think we should write the Family Liaison Office into the bill.
Do you think that would be a good idea, to make sure that it stays
around?
Ms. LLOYD. I certainly do. I think it is something which obviously
has ongoing importance to the Foreign Service and I think that would
be a very good suggestion.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So, in case we don't have quite as an enlightened
a Secretary, we maybe able to hold on to the office.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I would like to join the chairman in commending
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And did I understand, then, that the basic reason that you thought
some of the national American family member program services were
not working as well in certain areas was solely the wage scale?
Ms. LLOYD. It is the major reason. Most of these jobs are coining from
Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. There are a couple off
and on. None from Africa so far. Two from South America, a few
from the Middle East. Saudi Arabian wages are also very high. They
are coming in and they will continue to come in from the areas in
which the salary would be equivalent to an American salary.
Well, I could go on. There are several countries where there have
been as many as seven available vacancies, but the spouses do feel that
it is simply not worth the work effort at alien wages. It is exploitive,
basically.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you think the bill will take care of that with
the wage provision?
Ms. LLOYD. Well, it gives us the option, at least, yes.
Mrs. SC ROEDER. Well, I thank you very much. I think you have
done an excellent job. It sounds like you have more to do than you
have people to do it, but good luck. [Laughter.]
Mr. FASCELL. Let me ask you one question. What does it appear is
the major family problem?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The husband. [Laughter.]
Ms. LLOYD. The most disruptive and the longest counseling cases are
the divorce cases. I would say second to that, perhaps, are problems
with adolescent children.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much.
Mr. Read, when we last stopped, we were on chapter 7, page 53,
section 701. And since we have established a format and you know
what it is, why don't you just go on and tell us?
Mr. READ. Perhaps you would permit me a few words of introduc-
tion, if I may, Mr. Chairman and Mrs. Schroeder.
Mr. FASCELL. By all means.
STATEMENT OF HON. BEN H. READ, UNDER SECRETARY FOR
MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. READ. I would like to pay tribute to Janet Lloyd and her col-
leagues. They have done a spectacular job against very real odds in
the last 11/2 years. It has been a matter of great pride to the Secretary
and all of us that they have been able to accomplish what they have.
I think it is outstanding.
I was talking to the Secretary just this morning about the schedule
which the committee had kept prerecess and has set out for itself in
September, and we really are enormously appreciative of the time
which you have carved out of your own schedules to undertake this
effort.
It is prodigious. We want to stay with you and are ready at any
point if you wish to respond to additional questions or to go back and
pick up the points that other witnesses have made.
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As you recall, we had completed the first six chapters in the section-
by-section discussion, and I am happy to say we are now at the chapters
which are largely consolidation and codification-chapters 7, 8, and 9.
Chapter 8 is the longest chapter in the bill by quite a number of pages,
but it has only two or three new features in it. And hopefully we might
possibly be able to cover those chapters today.
On chapter 7, before I turn it over to Jim, I would like to say a word
or two about career development, if I may, because it is in the title,
and yet it is so largely administrative in nature that it is not visible
in the pages of the bill what we are doing or what we are planning
to do.
Harry Barnes and I both testified when we were last here before
this committee that career development is going to be our top priority,
along with the structural legislative reform, and we mean it.
Career development is two things. It is the training features which
you see in front of you in the legislation, and it is the assignment proc-
ess. They are twin parts of how professional development occurs in
the Service.
The legislation will provide a marvelous takeoff point for tooling up
in new ways, in more modern ways than the Service has been able to
do to date in its career development efforts. For instance, the new
Senior Foreign Service and the senior threshold will require a whole
set of new precepts to be worked out in negotiations with the Ameri-
can Foreign Service Association. Those precepts will begin to set the
new and higher requirements that we hope will be met in the Senior
Foreign Service of the future.
We cannot put them in overnight. It would be inequitable to require
new things without sufficient warning. And yet, it is a fine opportu-
nity for us to set new goals and work toward them.
Our aim is for Foreign Service officers who aspire to the top of the
Service to be required increasingly to have experience in either poli-
tical or economic analysis and reporting as well as administrative or
consular work.
Too often, people have gone up one of those areas, as we said before,
and then are suddenly expected to be broad generalists managing large
missions. And it's simply good luck if you happen to have someone
who has the dual skills and sensitivities, but those are going to be
required increasingly for those who aspire to go to the top.
We will not force people to do that because others are doing highly
important tasks in specialized fields, but where they aspire to the top,
we want to make it much clearer than it has been in the past that this
will be required. Along with that, of course, will go language and
other formal training and opportunities for program direction which
are not always a part of the background of people who get to these
top levels at the moment.
The training and assignment patterns and the goals of other mem-
bers of the Service, including FSO's. will tend to follow more special-
ized paths. Training and work opportunities for Foreign Service mem-
bers are also an extremely important element in our planning and
thinking at this point.
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The administrative modification of the existing FSO cone struc-
ture, which is also something we spent time discussing with you
earlier this summer, is a key part of this effort. I have just approved
proposed plans and schedules in this area for discussion with AFSA
that we have been working on for several weeks.
I thought if the committee would be interested, I would like to offer
for insertion in the record at this time a memorandum setting forth
our thinking on this subject which is now under active discussion with
AFSA.
Mr. FASCELL. Without objection, the memorandum will be included
in the record.
[The memorandum referred to follows:]
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE
AND DIRECTOR OF PERSONNEL,
Washington, D.C., August 16, 1979.
To M-Mr. Ben H. Read.
From M/DGP-Nancy V. Rawls, Acting.
Subject : Foreign Service Structure : Modification of the FSO Cone System-
Action memorandum.
We have previously discussed in general terms the need to establish a more
structured approach to professional development for the various categories of
Department employees. With the introduction in Congress of the proposed For-
eign Service Act of 1979, we believe the time has come to move forward on a
proposal on professional development for FSOs which would link training and
assignments at mid-career to a more explicit and rigorous Threshold to the se-
lect and highly-qualified Senior Foreign Service envisioned in the draft bill. Since
the proposal would change assignment and counseling procedures, it requires con-
saltation with AFSA. It would not, however, require greater authority for PER
than we now have, as recently confirmed by the Secretary, to make assignment
decisions which balance longer-term development interests with immediate Serv-
ice needs and individual preferences. This memorandum therefore describes modi-
fications of the cone system for assignment, training and counseling (and pos-
sibly promotion) for FSOs and requests your approval to raise the proposal with
ASFA. Our implementation goals would be to announce our intentions and de-
velop officer awareness during the 1980 assignment cycle, to draw on the im-
proved analysis of functional needs provided by the skill code project in mid-
1980, and to proceed with dual-cone designations and assignments in the 1980
assignment cycle.
In our earlier papers on professional development, we alluded to the idea of a
pattern for FSO careers which would include acquisition of a plurality of skills
and experience. This idea grew out of our study of the present cone system, which
concluded that, while the present system has served us tolerably well in terms
of staffing those broad functional areas, it is no longer adequate to meet either
newer and more specialized Service needs or the growing requirements for man-
agerial talent at senior levels.
For example, the emphasis on single-function assignment and promotion com-
petition has tended to discourage officers from entering new fields, such as nar-
cotics affairs or humanitarian affairs, or smaller fields, such as science and
technology or labor affairs. Further, in light of the McBer study and our own
studies of career development, it seems clear that no single cone provides offi-
cers with the full range of skills and knowledge needed in senior executive posi-
NoTE.-Memo given to AFSA for discussion September 4, 1979.
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tions. The consular and administrative cones have traditionally provided op-
portunities for officers to develop managerial and inter-personal skills, while the
economic/commercial and political fields have emphasized analytical and report-
ing skills plus substantive knowledge of foreign affairs. All these skills are, of
course, important at the top.
Finally, the proposed structural reforms, particularly the Senior Foreign Serv-
ice, underlie the importance and urgency of taking steps to improve career de-
velopment. In order to establish a Threshold for the select and highly-qualified
SFS envisioned in the bill, we need to have a systematic and reasonably acces-
sible program under which officers will be aware of the Threshold requirements
and have opportunities to meet them. (Realistically, the Threshold requirements
will probably have to be applied in stages over several years, in order to avoid
inequitable treatment of mid-grade officers, particularly at the FSO-3 level,
whose assignment patterns reflect the current emphasis on cones.) As part of
our larger effort on implementation of the new Foreign Service structure, we
are currently working on proposed criteria for the senior Threshold. These would
certainly have to include the requirement for a wider range of skills and ex-
perience than is normally provided by the present system and might also in-
clude requirements with respect to language qualification, service in hardship
posts and a reasonable distribution of geographic experience in addition, of
course, to superior performance.
What we suggest is modification of the present cone system to permit and en-
courage a plural approach to career development for FSOs. As each officer com-
pletes the Junior Officer Program and enters the mid-career stage, he or she, in
consultation with PER, would decide on the main lines of career development
thereafter. In the normal case, this would mean continued progression within
the tentative cone of entry, supplemented by training and assignments in other
cones or subfunctions. (In this process, PER would factor in Service needs as
reflected in skill/resource projections and current assignment lags, so that of-
ficers would be guided toward areas with reasonable assignment prospects. Our
workforce planning would have to keep.track of the acquisition of secondary
skills, but hiring and promotion up to the Threshold could still be based largely
on primary cone designations.) In certain other cases, the decision could call
for concentration solely within one cone, in the clear understanding that career
prospects would be defined generally by the opportunities within that field. Other
cases might involve applications to change the original cone, subject to a needs
test. But in all cases, once the basic career direction was established, PER would
proceed with training and assignments with such focus up to the Threshold. We
will need to know more than we presently know about the number and combina-
tion of skills which might be acquired in this process. As a start-to find out how
we presently stand-we are pursuing a project to systematically inventory the
skills and experience each FSO possesses and the skills and experience re-
quired for each FSO position. Future work force planning can then take account
of current Service needs at any point based on a more reliable inventory. The
system will be operational next spring.'
In parallel with our efforts to reform structure in a way which increases the
compatibility between the Foreign Service and Civil Service systems within the
Department, we also intend to look at the whole question of professional de-
velopment for senior GS employees. In this regard, we need to determine what
combination of skills and experience are needed for the Senior Executive Serv-
ice and the kind of counseling and training which should be provided to that end.
Implementation of this proposal for the Foreign Service-once agreed and
approved by AFSA and the Department-could begin with the newly tenured
FSO-6 and current 04 officers during the 1981 assignment cycle. A goodly
number of FSO-4 officers could also be included in a later phase. But it may
be that many FSO-4's and most FSO-3's are past the point in their careers when
development of new functional expertise is possible or desirable. However, such
officers could be given a certain degree of protection through the phasing-in of
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Senior Threshold requirements, and the limitations of their career patterns
would not make them any more difficult to handle under this approach than
under the current system.
Properly implemented, a plural career development system should give the
Department greater control over the flow of officers into different functions
while permitting individuals to have a greater variety of experience than at
present. A political officer who serves as a GSO or management analyst would
acquire a better understanding of the management of people and resources,
while a consular officer who gets involved in fishery affairs will get better ex-
posure to policymaking and the conduct of bilateral and multilateral relations.
Admin officers should find that the analytical and drafting opportunities in
INR were very advantageous, and economic officers could had new challenges
in budget work in a regional executive office.
But it is important to note that multi-functional training and assignments
would require a strong and effective central PER role in personnel decisions,
both to help officers move into appropriate jobs after training in a new function
and to insure that posts and offices receive qualified replacements. It would
probably be necessary for FSI to add or modify training in certain functions, to
provide appropriate bridges for new entrants to those fields.
Two other caveats regarding implementation should be noted. First, in think-
ing about career development, we have to be aware of the apparent conflict be-
tween the need for top flight specialists in a world of increasingly specialized
diplomacy, and the evident need to give our prospective senior executives a
broader range of experience. To the extent that an officer prefers a specialized
career pattern, knowing that it will probably not lead to a senior managerial
position, well and good. But for officers aiming to develop a number of special-
ties in preparation for senior executive jobs, we suggest that the twig be bent
fairly early, say at the current Class 4 level, with the second cone experience
already obtained normally at class 5. This would leave the later stages of mid-
career service for focus on the primary cone, at a rank level which calls for
solid credentials to succeed in the bureaucratic arena in Washington.
Second, to provide additional support for the two-track approach, we should
also modify the system of awarding midgrade promotions. Under the present
cone-based system, many people believe that out-of-cone experience is penalized.
We should make sure that officers gaining new skills via training, details or
other out-of-cone work are given suitable consideration perhaps via a reason-
ably large multi-functional promotion pool. (This change seems desirable in
any event, but is not required to implement the other changes in the cone sys-
tem.) To further increase our flexibility and provide suitable inducement for
acquiring peripheral skills where we need them, we also want to take a close
look at the constraints inherent in the zone merit promotion system and deter-
mine whether the advantages in that system are still sufficiently evident to
justify its retention.
Finally, the proposed system would facilitate development of rigorous Senior
Threshold criteria. The requirement for dual-development should be a criterion
for the more managerial generalist component of the SFS, for instance. Its
voluntary nature is likewise consistent with our approach to the SFS and with
the reality that we could not practically cross-train all officers and the related
fact that not all officers aim for senior executive status. Like the effort to im-
prove the skill code system, modification of the cone system increases the body
of public wisdom about what is needed to succeed in this business, improves
our capacity to counsel and assign personnel and also supports the general
thrust of the structural reforms. It is worth noting at this point, however, that
counseling will have to be both more "intrusive" and more continuous, i.e., it
can no longer focus exclusively on people and jobs coming up during the imme-
diate assignment cycle. It will also become, even more than at present, a two-
way dialogue with a fair measure of continuing self-appraisal by the officer.
It also seems clear that a more directed assignments procedure will be neces-
sary as greater priority on development will be perceived in some cases as in-
consistent with bureau and officer preferences in particular cases. However,
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this would be quite compatible with the Secretary's recent affirmation of the
role and authority of PER.
IMPLEMENTATION
If you approve the general thrust of our thinking, we will proceed with the
following steps to lay the foundation for multifunctional assignments and coun-
seling. As noted above, this project must be carefully coordinated with the skill
code project, so that our counseling of officers on additional cones will be con-
sistent with our best estimates of needs. The schedule indicates certain major
milestones of the skill code project and also takes account of the timing of assign-
ment cycles.
Dual-Cone Project Skills Codes Project
1. Management proposal discussed with 1. Preliminary discussions with bureaus
bureaus and presented to AFSA : and consultations with AFSA :
September. completed.
2. Open Assignments and counseling 2. Develop new OER form (for posi-
messages advise officers to consider tion data) and new PAR form (for
out-of-cone assignments for career officer data) : September.
development : throughout the forth-
coming cycle.
3. Completion of AFSA consultations 3. Acquire OCR equipment and com-
and announcement to the field of plete skill code listings : October-
multifunctional program : Decem- December.
ber 1.
4. Distribution of new PAR form and 4. Testing of new OER and PAR
instructions for officers to designate forms : January.
primary skills with new codes, plus
existing or desired additional skills:
March-April.
5. Submission of CDOs of new PARs 5. Distribution of new OER forms and
for verification of skills and entry instructions for employees and ad-
into data base: May/June. min officers to prepare new position
designations : March-April.
6. Submission to PER of new OER
front pages for review of position
data and entry into data base: May/
June.
Preparation of new requirements/skills inventories: end of July
6. CDOs begin discussions with tenured 7. PER/MGT applies new data to work-
O-6s and O-5s on secondary cone force planning : August.
designations : August.
7. 1981 Open Assignments cable de-
scribes procedures and asks 0-4 offi-
cers to indicate additional cone in-
terests : September.
8. Additional cone assignments made
for 0-6 and 0-5 officers ; secondary
cones identified for most 0-4 officers :
1981 Assignment Cycle.
That you approve modification of the cone system to permit and encourage
FSOs to develop professional competence in aditional functional fields, with
implementation based on the schedule noted above.
Mr. READ. Thank you very much. If I may, I will turn it over to
Mr. Michel at this point.
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Mr. FASCELL. All right. Mr. Michel, let's concentrate on those sub-
stantive changes.
Mr. MICHEL. All right, Mr. Chairman.
The first section, section 701, reflects a continuation of the Foreign
Service Institute which was established under the 1946 Act. The bill
refers to authority to maintain and operate the existing Institute
rather than to create a new one, so here is an element of continuity in
the way we have drafted it.
A substantive change is the reference of the promotion of career
development as an expressed statutory objective of Foreign Service
training. That is in section 701(a). The only other substantive change
in section 701 appears in paragraph (2) of subsection (b). The para-
graph provides express authorization for functional training for fam-
ily members in connection with anticipated employment in the For-
eign Service abroad.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you have enough slots for family members and
staff people, or do you ever have to prioritize? Do you think that will
be a problem?
Mr. READ. Happily, it has not been an either/or dilemma so far,
Mrs. Schroeder, and I don't anticipate it in the immediate future al-
though we may get to it at some point.
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me, Mr. Michel. What is the difference between
the language in the present law on that specific point, which says :
to members of families of officers and employees of the Government in anticipa-
tion of assignment while abroad and functional training for anticipated pros-
pective employment under section 333.
Mr. MICHEL. The reference to functional training, Mr. Chairman, is
new.
Mr. FASCELL. Does that have a traditional definition in the state of
the art?
Mr. MICHEL. This is, for example, the consular training Mrs. Lloyd
referred to.
Mr. READ. Budget, administrative, etcetera.
Mr. MICHEL. This is to enable the family members to step into jobs
when openings are there and is in addition to orientation and language
training which prepares them for life abroad as members of a family.
Mr. FASCELL. So you are making it clear in the statute that that is
part of
Mr. MICHEL. Part of what is provided to family members as an
opportunity for training in job skills for openings abroad.
Mr. FASCELL. Althou+g~h it is not mandated, it is anticipated that this
expanded service will pe pursued in the regulatory manner as it is
now.
Mr. READ. Exactly.
Mr. FASCELL. OK.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 702 of the bill restates the requirement for
foreign language capability by members of the Foreign Service who
serve abroad and directs the Secretary of State to arrange for appro-
priate language training. This is based on section 578 of the 1946 act
which appears on page 38 of the side-by-side comparison.
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426
Section 703 updates existing provisions in the 1946 act relating to
the training authorities and the functioning of the Foreign Service
Institute. In this bill we have vested the authorities in the Secretary
of State, leaving for the Secretary to delegate them to the Director of
the Foreign Service Institute. The 1946 act specified certain authorities
to be performed by the Director.
That change conforms to the 1949 statute which took authorities
vested in subordinate officers and moved them to the Secretary of
State.
Mr. FASCELL. Is that theory generally followed throughout the bill
wherever that occurs?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASOELL. In other words, all authority is vested in the Secretary
of State with authority to delegate?
Mr. MICHEL. That is correct. The function of managing the Foreign
Service Institute is an exclusive function of the Secretary of State.
The reference to the Secretary in that context does not include the
heads of other foreign affairs agencies. We mean for there to be one
Foreign Service Institute, not four or five.
We have eliminated a provision from the 1946 act on page 56,
former section 706.
Mr. FnsCELL. All of page 55, then, is a restatement of existing law.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir. We have simply reorganized it in a mort
coherent form.
Mr. FAsCELL. All right.
Mr. MICHEL. We have eliminated section 706 of the 1946 act as
being unnecessary. The authority of the Secretary to accept gifts for
the Department of State quite clearly includes the Foreign Service
Institute.
Mr. FASCELL. So you don't need a special statutory authorization.
Mr. MICHEL. No, we don't need to repeat it.
Section 704 on training and orientation grants is the same as sec-
tion 708 of the 1946 act, with one technical exception. With respect to
the cost of language training for family members, the 1946 act, as
amended, provides that the Secretary may partially compensate the
family member.
That seemed a little bit rigid because a family member who goes to
an inexpensive course, can be reimbursed only part of the cost. And
if they go to an expensive course, they can be reimbursed only part
of the cost. It seemed more rational to have a system in which we can
designate an amount of money that the State Department will provide
toward language training. If that covers all of the costs, that is fine ;
and if it covers only a part of the costs, then the individual would
make up the difference.
So we have authorized the Secretary to pay all or part of the costs,
as appropriate. I think it makes for a more rational administration of
the program.
Section 705 on career counseling is a consolidation of section 639 of
the 1946 act and section 413, the first dealing with the Foreign Service
personnel and the second with family members. The only substantive
change we have made is to provide explicitly that the career counsel-
ing for personnel may include former members of the Service.
This means that an individual who is in the process of leaving does
not necessarily, on the last day of duty, stop getting whatever career
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counseling was in process on that date. We don't have to keep an indi-
vidual on the rolls to complete the counseling process.
Mr. READ. I would like to add that career counseling has been a
useful supplement to our authority. This was granted, as you know,
by the committee 11/2 years ago, and 222 people as of September 1 re-
ceived help under it.
We are also devising, as recent correspondence with you suggested,
something between the highly intensive course and the seminars, so
that it is not an either/or situation where you have a highly intensive,
expensive program or only seminars to choose from.
Mr. FASCELL. How about using the Family Liaison Office for individ-
uals leaving the Service?
Mr. READ. I am not aware that that has come up as a specific pro-
posal so far.
Ms. LLoYn. We do counsel spouses, but that is all:
Mr. READ. This is a different form of counseling. This is training
employees for alternative career employment.
Mr. FASCELL. But if you are going to expand this, it will not include
family members?
Mr. READ. At the moment, we have an intensive counseling service
which averages something like $6,000 per person. It is a contract serv-
ice, as you know. We also have seminars which cost in the neighbor-
hood of $150 or $200 cost per person. And there is a need for something
in between. That is what we are in the process of setting up at this
point.
Mr. FASCELL. As long as you two don't see any overlap, I have no
problem. So career counseling of spouses of former emloyees is not
a problem insofar as Family Liaison is concerned. It is clearly sepa-
rated and is a function of the career counseling service. Fine.
Mr. MICHEL. That concludes chapter 7, which, as Under Secretary
Read indicated, is primarily a codification.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's move right along.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Could I just ask what all of that costs?
Mr. READ. Yes. The cost to date, and this is a new career counseling
program, has been $190,000 for the 222 persons who have gone through
it to date.
Mr. MICHEL. The Foreign Service retirement and disability system
established in 1924 would be continued by this bill without significant
change. Indeed, for the most part we have duplicated the section num-
bers in the 1946 act and have confined the drafting to technical matters.
We have made sure we have masculine and feminine pronouns. We have
subdivided long, hard tol read sentences into numbered clauses, not
necessarily easy to read, but a little better organized, we think.
I would like to just touch upon the changes, then, that have been
made which are of a substantive character and which are highlights
of this codification.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. What is the first one?
Mr. MICHEL. The first one is in section 821(b) (2), on page 66. This
modifies the right of the married participant to elect in writing to
waive or reduce a survivor annuity for a spouse. This is a subject in
which the law has made different provisions from time to time.
At one time there was no survivor annuity unless an affirmative
election was made by the employee. That was changed and the law
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provided that there would automatically be a reduction in annuity of
a married participant to provide the survivor annuity for the spouse.
At present, the law provides that there will be an automatic reduc-
tion in the member's annuity in order to provide a survivor annuity
for a spouse unless the member waives the survivor annuity. The bill
provides that the waiver may be made only with the consent of the
spouse in the case of a spouse who has maintained a residence with the
member for a period of 10 years or more, including accompanying the
member on assignments abroad.
This is a matter that we discussed at some length with representa-
tives of the American Association of Foreign Service Women. There
was a concern on their part that the spouse, by serving abroad in these
circumstances, really was deprived of opportunities for independence
and self-sufficiency and had earned the survivor annuity and should
have a say in whether that survivor annuity is to be granted or not.
We accepted that point and wrote that right of the spouse into the
bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I have no problem with that. That makes sense.
Mr. READ. I am very hopeful that language may be useful in State
court proceedings as well because it does attempt to state the premise
of
Mr. FASCELL. Yes; you give them a statutory right.
Mr. MICHEL. And this would be, in effect, a finding by the Congress
that a Foreign Service spouse does incur disadvantages and sacrifices
by serving abroad, which we think courts would take some notice of.
Mr. READ. And career disruptions.
Mr. MICHEL. The next departure from the existing title VIII of the
1946 act is a structural one which appears at page 80. We have placed
the provisions on voluntary and mandatory retirement and retirement
of former Presidential appointees in this chapter as sections 835, 836,
and 837 simply because logical organization suggested that was the
more appropriate place for them.
There are no substantive changes from the corresponding sections in
the 1946 act with respect to voluntary and mandatory retirement.
Section 837 at the top of page 81, on retirement of former Presi-
dential employees, is broadened from the 1946 act. Section 519 of the
present law provides for the retirement of a chief of mission who is not
reassigned on completion of service as a chief of mission.
We have provided the same rule for assistant secretaries and other
Presidential appointees simply on the ground that there was, to our
way of thinking, no rational distinction to be made between the in-
dividual Foreign Service officer who serves in an Assistant Secretary
position and the individual Foreign Service officer who serves in a chief
of mission position, completes that assignment and is not reassigned.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, you preserve his rights notwithstand-
ing the Presidential appointment.
Mr. MICHEL. This would provide an immediate retirement for those
who are not reassigned following that service as a Presidential
appointee.
Mr. FABCELL. Have you any problems with that?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. [Nods negatively.]
Mr. FABCELL. OK.
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Mr. MICHEL. The next change is in section 851(h), on page 87, at
the bottom. We provide as a technical amendment that a participant
in the Foreign Service retirement system who goes on leave without
pay to serve as an employee of a Member or office of the Congress-
and office would include a committee-will continue to contribute to
the Foreign Service retirement fund during that period, and the
employing office would make the matching 7-percent-employer's
contribution.
This would provide a continuity of employment coverage under one
system for these individuals and would avoid the inequity of a period
of free service for anyone who could otherwise serve months without
making contributions and still have the coverage.
Mr. FASCELL. We had better stop right there. We must go vote on a
bill and then we will come right back.
[Brief recess.]
Mr. FASCELL. Where were we, pages 87 and 88?
Mr. MICHEL. It is page 89. But before we start with chapter 9, Mr.
Chairman, I wonder if it would be agreeable with you if I put into
the record at this point a short statement of the need, as the Depart-
ment sees it, for the continuation of the mandatory retirement pro-
vision of the law in its present form.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes; you may put it in the record, but there is going
to be a little dispute on that.
Mr. READ. I would like, if I may, to insert into the record the let-
ter which Secretary Vance wrote to you last April on this same sub-
ject, and a copy of the Supreme Court's opinion, if that would be
agreeable.
Mr. FASCELL. Without objection, those items will be included in the
record at this point. Let's put it right with the section. That is
Mr. READ. 836.
[The material referred to follows:]
THE NEED FOR CONTINUATION OF MANDATORY RETIREMENT IN THE FOREIGN SERVICE
OF THE UNITED STATES
To manage and execute U.S. foreign policy, the Nation needs a highly capable,
mobile corps of dedicated personnel able and willing to assume a wide range of
demanding duties sometimes under difficult and dangerous conditions, often at
short notice, anywhere in the world.
The Congress has determined that normally Foreign Service personnel should
retire no later than age 60. This reflected the fact that the Foreign Service, with
the special nature of its mission and its unusual conditions of service, is much
more analagous to the military services than to other civilian services of the
Government. The state of readiness for any kind of service worldwide, expected of
members of the Foreign Service, corresponds closely to what is expected from
members of the Armed Forces. In fact, it was the military model from which the
Congress drew the provision for retirement in the Foreign Service.
As the Supreme Court noted in its 8-1 decision in the Vance v. Bradley case, the
Congress not only has held this view since 1924 but has expanded its application
subsequently : "Congress not only retained the lower retirement age for Foreign
Service officers when it reorganized the Foreign Service in 1946, but it also
lowered the age to 60. In expanding the coverage of the Foreign Service retire-
ment system to reach others than Foreign Service officers, Congress obviously
reaffirmed its own judgment that the system should provide a lower retirement
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age than in the civil service system, just as it did in 1978 when it repealed the
mandatory retirement of civil service employees but left intact the rule for those
under the Foreign Service system."
Approximately 60 percent of the Foreign Service is serving abroad at any one
time in contrast to about 5 percent in the civil service where foreign duty is
generally a volunteer matter.
Foreign Service personnel are assigned and reassigned regularly and spend a
substantial portion of their careers overseas.
The conditions of service in the Foreign Service are unusually demanding. For
example, 95 percent of Foreign Service personnel aged 21 to 29 are medically able
to serve anywhere in the world, but only 68 percent of personnel aged 50 to 59
are able to do so. (There is a similar trend among spouses) :
PERCENTAGE OF STATE FOREIGN SERVICE PERSONNEL WITH A CURRENT MEDICAL EVALUATION MAKING THEM
UNAVAILABLE FOR ASSIGNMENT TO ALL POSTS AS OF FEB. 28, 1979
Officer age group:
21 to 29-------------------------------------------------------------------
30 to 39-------------------------------------------------------------------
40 to 49-------------------------------------------------------------------
50 to 59-------------------------------------------------------------------
5 2
8 6
18 11
32 19
This situation is now manageable. However, if mandatory retirement were to
be eliminated or the age raised significantly, the ability of the Secretary to assign
personnel to otherwise appropriate posts would be reduced to the point that it
would become excessively difficult for him to meet his worldwide responsibilities.
And as the Supreme Court stated in its decision, it would appear sensible "that
the Government would take steps to assure itself that not just some but all
members of the Service have the capability of rendering superior performance and
satisfying all of the conditions of the Service."
The Congress did, however, provide for two exceptions to the existing manda-
tory retirement rule. These exceptions permit the retention of extraordinarily
capable officers past the time of mandatory retirement.
(A) The Secretary's waiver.-The Secretary may make an exception to the
retirement when it is in the national interest to do so.
(B) Presidential appointees.-Career personnel serving in positions to which
they have been appointed by the President (as Ambassador or Assistant Secre-
taries) are exempted from the retirement while serving in such positions. There
are 95 career persons currently holding such appointments of whom 4 are 60
or older.
Under these circumstances, we recommend that mandatory retirement be
retained as a general rule and that the Secretary and the President continue to
be authorized to make exceptions as seems appropriate.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE,
Washington, D.C., April 24,, 1979.
Hon. DANTE B. FASCELL,
Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations, Committee on Foreign
Affairs, House of Representatives.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN : I have heard that during floor debate on H.R. 3363, the
Department of State authorization bill, some Members might propose amend-
ments to repeal or revise upward the Foreign Service mandatory retirement age
provision, a provision which, as you know, was upheld by an 84 decision of the
Supreme Court this past February.
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Mandatory retirement at age 60 is an integral part of the personnel policies of
the Service designed to foster a steady upward movement with increasing respon-
sibilities, and thus spur morale and superior performance in the ranks. The
suspension of mandatory retirement in 1977, pursuant to the District Court ruling,
demonstrates the importance of the provision. In the first promotion cycle
following the suspension, due to sharply reduced attrition, promotions to classes
1 through 5 were down 74 percent from the average number granted each year
in the previous decade. In the most recent promotion cycle, using a revised
method of calculating promotion opportunities, promotions were down by 24
percent.
Moreover, there must be mobility in the Service. Our personnel must be able to
serve in difficult areas far from medical facilities, under constant stress, including
high crime rates, terrorism, and harassment by host governments. Their state of
readiness more nearly resembles that of the military, which continues subject to
mandatory retirement, than that of the civil service.
Our statistics show a rise in the percentage of Foreign Service personnel in
successive age groups with medical conditions that prevent assignment to diffi-
cult posts. The elimination or raising of the mandatory retirement age would
severely hamper my flexibility to make assignments and place inequitable and
greater burdens on younger officers to staff the more difficult posts.
In summary, I believe that retirement at age 60 in the Foreign Service is
necessary and reasonable. It is necessary in order to assure an orderly career
progression in the Service and to enhance competition, which is the spur to
achievement. It is reasonable and fair because it is a long-standing, well-known
provision accepted by employees when they joined the Foreign Service.
With warm regards,
Sincerely,
CYRUS VANCE.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is there anything else we could use in lieu of man-
datory retirement that would do the same thing? We may get into a
real bind-on this and you may want to think about that and come up
with it later.
Mr. READ. We have reviewed this with great care, both in the draft-
ing to the appeal to the Supreme Court last year and again in the legis-
lative draft, Mrs. Schroeder. And we are of the view that the early
retirement provision, section 835, and the mandatory retirement pro-
vision 836, are essentially parts of a coherent personnel planning proc-
ess for the Foreign Service.
It can be stated in many forms and has. I don't want to go into these
briefs unless you desire to do so. But first and foremost it boils down
to the fact that the primary purpose of the Foreign Service is to serve
in foreign countries, and we are increasingly worried about our ability
to staff our 250 posts in 148 other countries.
We are worried about it because the Secretary must have a mobile
Foreign Service corps which is obligated, willing, and able to serve
anywhere in the world on very short notice. Sixty percent of them are
serving abroad at any one time.
There are three reasons for our. concerns if I may ? just extend my
remarks for a few moments.
The Secretary in his opening remarks on June 21 alluded to the
deteriorating conditions of life in many of these posts abroad. We
don't mean to be melodramatic to note that there are-really remarkably
few pleasure posts in the world at this point. It is not all maximum
danger, but there are deprivations.
There are financial hardships. There are lack of amenities in serv-
ices and there are an extreme number of unhealthful and increasingly
dangerous places. And the death role in the Department's diplomatic
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lobby is a grim reminder of the fact that we have lost many members
of the Service just in the last few years.
Second and' contributing are the social factors which Janet Lloyd
referred to very sensitively in her statement. Families are often no
longer willing to go abroad again after four or five tours. It is an in-
creasing hardship for them because of the conditions there, because of
increasing educational requirements for children; because of a range
of career options that are open to spouses in the United States that
were not open before.
Third, is the medical evidence. At any one time a large proportion
of persons in their fifties are not available for service at all posts
abroad. At the moment, 32 percent of the employees in their fifties are
not available and an additional 19 percent of their families are not
available to serve worldwide. Now, that means that more than half of
all officers in their fifties cannot be assigned abroad.
So obviously, there is already a very large strain on our ability to
staff posts abroad. We do have the two provisions which are in exist-
ing law and which we are proposing to continue in this bill, to permit
those under Presidential appointments to continue to serve, and to per-
mit the Secretary to extend to age 65 those officers where it is in the
public interest to do so.
But it is not exaggeration to say that we foresee a time in the next
5 to 10 years, if mandatory retirement is repealed, when it may be ex-
tremely difficult to staff our posts abroad.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I guess I am only saying the things I hear you re-
sponding to are things that I would think would take care of them-
selves if the Secretary had the authority to say to people, either you
move to the XYZ post or you have no position, and you are then
voluntarily out, rather than you are portraying the idea that if we
don't have a younger service, then you will have all of these people
staying in Washington and refusing to go out and man posts.
I cannot quite believe that is happening and I think we are probably
off the track here. But I am just saying as we have to deal with this
mandatory 60 age retirement, we are going to be confronted with that.
That is what the devil's advocate is going to say to us if we say to them
what you have just said.
Mr. READ. I am very much aware and I don't wish to have anything I
say deprecate the service that older officers have performed and will
continue to perform. But on the averages, and we are not talking soci-
ology here, if we take that lid off, you simply will not have a Foreign
Service able to serve in foreign countries. When an average
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me for interrupting. Why is it you cannot ter-
minate an individual over 60 because he won't take an assignment or
his family cannot go, or his blood pressure is high, his feet are flat,
or whatever the problem is?
Mr. READ. You can. As you know, we have many features we are sug-
gesting in this bill that would relate retention and service very closely
to continuing performance capability.
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me, but let me get over to the legal problem.
It ought not to be a defensible act anywhere. If that is going to be
required by law, then we will have to do it by law. You cant have
your cake and eat it, too. If you are going to require worldwide serv-
ice, then you have to have a way of terminating without appeal, with-
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out going to the court, without seeing a psychiatrist, and without
talking to the Surgeon General or coming to the Congress and having
a committee meeting about it.
We are going to have to have one or the other. Now, how do we do
the other?
Mr. Micir i.. Mr. Chairman, there are provisions in the bill which
make clear that service abroad will be a condition of employment
for the Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes, but will that hold up?
Mr. MICHEL. I think that it will hold up.
Mr. FASCELL. Does the statute specifically say that it terminates all .
rights without this, that or the other?
Mr. MICIIEL. No. There is a provision for termination for cause, and
there is a right to appeal to the Foreign Service Grievance Board
before that decision becomes final. I think it would be very difficult
as a constitutional matter to take that right to be heard away from
the individual.
Mr. FASCELL. If it is a condition of employment?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, you would have to prove
Mr. FASCELL. Prove what?
Mr. MICT? [continuing]. That the individual did not take an
assignment for which the individual was available. It is not a mat-
ter of edict, that you can just say you do not come back tomorrow.
There are individual rights that have to be protected.
I think that the legal right is there. You can bring an involuntary
disability retirement and prove that someone is not medically fit to
serve. You can bring a separation for cause action and, in effect, prose-
cute the individual
Mr. FASCELL. Which is a direct refusal.
Mr. MICHEL [continuing]. Prosecute the individual for insub-
ordination, refusal to take an assignment. I think that is a very sorry
and inadequate alternative if you take individuals and fire them rather
than have an honorable retirement age.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes, but the individual has a choice.
Mr. READ. So often, Mr. Chairman, cases have come to me just in
these 2 years back in the Department that fall in a gray area. A
family member has a problem. It is physical, mental. It may be tempo-
rary, it may be longer. And you are just reaching for a hard and fast
conclusion.
Mr. FASCELL. If you have a hearing procedure and throw in all
the equity factors, you will never get anyone fired. You don't think
that is true? Someone back there is shaking his head that he doesn't
think that is true.
Mr. MICHEL. It doesn't make for a very
Mr. FASCELL. Let me put it this way, then. Have we got some sta-
tistics on the number of people who have been separated for cause
recently ?
Mr. MicnEL. Not very many. It is not a very efficient management
tool for operating a system in. which we have an objective of predict-
ability, up or out, performance.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't see how you can do it either when the whole
purpose of the statute is to protect the employment rights of the in-
dividual. That is the whole purpose of this thing, that and civil service.
It beats me.
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Mr. READ. The other factor, of course, is that everyone serving to-
day signed up in a period when this was a known feature of the law.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes, but I don't know, Ben. I haven't practiced law
in a long time but I have a funny feeling that none of that holds up.
There is something about consideration or special consideration that
has to go with waiving your rights, or something. I remember that
somewhere in basic contracts or whatever it was.
I think you could write it any way you wanted to here in terms of
involuntary separation, but I don't think you could make it stick.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think there was a problem, as you were men-
tioning, with family members, but don't you find as they get older,
there are fewer problems with the family? Isn't it the people in the
40's who are having the most trouble?
Mr. FASCELL. It depends upon how long your kids remain teens. I
have seen some teens that were 5. [Laughter.]
Mr. MICHEL. Shall we proceed?
Mr. FASCELL. I didn't mean to interrupt the questioning there.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is fine. You know what is going to happen.
We are going to have people come in here and say the mandatory 60
years of age is ridiculous. We have just seen the airline pilots go
through with it, and if we have trouble with them, you can imagine
what we are going to have with Foreign Service.
So thinking about that, you might think about : Does the bill do
enough in regard to your ability to man those posts and have manage-
ment rights or does it not? I don't know. Maybe I am wrong, but I
doubt very seriously that we can hold the 60 years age of retirement
on the floor.
Mr. FASCELL. I am not even sure if we can do it in the committees.
It is a very real factor.
Mr. READ. I know this presents an extremely difficult issue for you,
and yet our best recommendation is it is a fundamental cornerstone
to a sound Service. The new features of the bill, which will obviously
help, are not court-tested yet. We do not know if they will hold. We
certainly expect them to but they are not in being and not tested.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Would you do more if you thought we were not
going to be able to hold the 60-year-old retirement?
Mr. MICHEL. You get back to the problem we were just discussing
of individual rights. I don't think you can short-circuit the process of
involuntary separation. We are trying to maintain and improve a sys-
tem which will be more predictable in its intake of people, in promo-
tion rates, and it is necessary, in order to achieve that, to have the
predictability of when people are going out, or you have these bulges.
Mr. FASCELL. The objective is laudable. The question is how to get
there.
Mr. MICHEL. You can't do it by firing people.
Mr. FASCELL. You can't do it as a condition of employment that
doesn't imply a special consideration, whether you will have other
equitable rights intervene. And there is no way anyone can waive that
even by statute, in my judgment. And it is just a guess, not a legal
opinion. And even if you got it in writing, under oath, and there was
a special consideration, I don't know if it would hold up then.
Mr. MICHEL. You would have questions of fact in each case, and the
facts would have to be analyzed. There would be a hearing process. It
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is very difficult to conceive of any good alternative to mandatory re-
tirement if we are going to have a system that works.
Mr. FASCELL. And the process we are talking about, that is, due proc-
ess, is one which would take several years in each case.
Mr. MicHEL. It could.
Mr. READ. There are just two factors that occur to me. We are, hap-
pily, increasing in the interchangeability between the civil service and
the Foreign Service here. And I would hope with time that people
simply, for individual preferences that coincide with the needs of the
institution, will move at a certain point to the domestic side of the
house.
But, we cannot anticipate that happening in any reliable way, and
in the recent past, we have had this dreadful period in which the man-
datory provision was suspended and everybody was staying. There
were more than 100 officers. And what that did to our intake and pro-
motions was severe. We lost some very promising people.
Another side effect was that younger and midlevel persons were hav-
ing to man the tough hardship posts.
Mr. FASCELL. The response to that is the older you get the wiser you
get, and all of the older people should be running everything.
Mr. READ. I tend to think that as I am getting into my midfifties.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you have any data on worldwide service of the
people who stayed in during this period it was suspended?
Mr. READ. I am sure we can develop it.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Anything you have like that, we may need.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes, we are going to need everything. About statistics
on refusals to serve, or cases where people did not go overseas for one
reason or another. Do you have statistics?
Mr. READ. I think this little brief we have submitted, Mr. Chair-
man
Mr. FASCELL. Has that in it? Age statistics?
Mr. READ. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Is there a rationale for saying that younger people are
more willing to serve overseas and . older people are not?
Mr. READ. I think in practice that is true. We will try to develop
what data we can for you on that.
Mr. FASCELL. I know, but you know, what you think is going to be
countered by. what someone else thinks. We need hard data.
Mr. READ. Yes; we need hard data.
Mr. MICHEL. Ultimately it is a question of the system working as
against the rights of an individual and the obligations of this system
to the individual. The data will show that statistically there is a cor-
relation between age and medical clearance, an ability to serve in many
posts abroad.
And ultimately there is a question of whether that kind of data war-
rants the maintenance of a mandatory retirement age in the interests
of an effective Foreign Service, or do the rights of the individual out-
weigh that so that you have to go on a case-by-case basis, which means
the hearings and the elaborate procedures which are necessary.
Mr. FASCELL. You are going to have to broaden your legal section,
set up your own court system, and go one by one.
Mr. MICHEL. That won't make for a very effective Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, you can hire more lawyers. [Laughter.]
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. How often do you give these physicals? For each
post there is a different physical requirement? Is that it?
Mr. READ. It is usually when people come back from abroad or when
they go out for a new posting. But there are also periodic ones.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. And they are kind of attuned to the post?
Mr. READ. Yes; very much so.
Mr. MICHEL. The only other noteworthy change in chapter 8 appears
on page 89 at the bottom. We have incorporated an authority that was
extended to the civil service last year. Such authorities by law, can be
made applicable to the Foreign Service through Executive order, and,
this has been done.
Section 864(b) provides for a recognition of court awards which
divide the earnings of an annuitant so that a portion of the annuity
can be awarded by the court to the divorced spouse and the Depart-
ment of State will recognize that court decree and permit an assign-
ment for that purpose.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You originally were willing to go with more. This
is what the OMB compromise was. Is that correct?
Mr. MICHEL. No, this is a provision that deals with assignment of the
annuity being paid to the former employee. There remains an open
issue with OMB about the right of a divorced spouse to a survivor
benefit, which we don't deal with in the bill at this time. We hope to
have an administration position soon.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So do we.
Mr. FASCELL. All right, let's move on.
Mr. MICHEL. Chapter 9 begins on page 98. This chapter is also a
codification of title IX of the 1946 act, and, if I may, I would like to
continue highlighting the changes.
First of all, section 901 enumerates different kinds of travel expenses
that may be reimbursed. We have eliminated from this enumeration
the travel expenses involved in reassignment because of a change in
the seat of government in a foreign country. It seemed that if an in-
dividual was assigned to Karachi and is reassigned to Islamabad
because the capital of Pakistan has changed, that he is physically mov-
ing and we can pay the cost of that movement like any other reassign-
ment and there was no real need to put that in the law.
It seems that we ought to be able to handle that by regulation. I
just wanted to make a record that we were eliminating that on the
theory that it is unnecessary, not that we didn't want people to move
to the new seat of government.
There is a new provision for medical travel on page 99 in paragraph
(5) (b) of the new section 901. This has to do primarily with the situa-
tion where you have a parent at the post with a small child. The parent
is medically evacuated. There is nothing wrong with the small child
other than that the small child is incapable of caring for himself or
herself. This would allow that child to be evacuated with the parent.
That is something we have not had until now.
Another change is in paragraph (6), which authorizes rest and re-
cuperation travel on a periodic basis to individual members and' their
families at designated posts. The present law permits this It. & R.
travel not more frequently than once during a 2-year tour or twice
during a 3-year tour.
We have written into subparagraph (B) an authority for the Secre-
tory of State to specify additional It. & R. travel in extraordinary cir-
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cuinstances. This is in recognition of the fact that there are a few posts
where there is extraordinary isolation and difficulty of living and the
individual has to get out once in a while in the interest of their physical
and mental well-being.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you take that into account, especially in coun-
tries, say, such as Saudi Arabia where I know some of the wives have
special difficulty mingling in society? Is that the type of thing you
are thinking about?
Mr. READ. It would be. We obviously will have to put together regu-
lations to make this come to life. That would certainly be a type of
situation which should be considered. Peking is another example where
it is just extremely difficult to stay there for a prolonged period of time
without getting out into a little different environment.
Mr. MICHEL. I would also note in paragraphs (7) and (8) on page
100 we previously-I think it is just a matter of the drafting occurring
in different years-had one set of criteria for the evacuation of family
members and a different set of criteria for family visitation by the em-
ployee who remained behind. We conformed those so that if the criteria
are met for evacuation and the family is evacuated, then those same
criteria will warrant family visitation during periods of prolonged
family separation.
On page 101 in paragraph (12) of section 901, we have eliminated
an explicit limitation which seemed self-evident, on combined storage
of effects and shipment of effects. The. law says you cannot ship and
store in combination more than you could have shipped. That seems
self-evident and we propose to deal with that kind of detail in
regulations.
The only other notable changes, I believe, are in the medical travel
and health care provisions. We have eliminated, in the authority for
medical travel, section 901, paragraph (5) on page 99, and also in
medical care, on page 104, section 921, the exclusion of travel or treat-
ment for persons whose medical condition is the result of vicious
habits, intemperance or misconduct. That seemed an arbitrary limita-
tion which tested the ability of the doctors and lawyers to distinguish
cases and find that people were not excluded from travel or treatment
by virtue of those exclusions. [Laughter.]
Mr. FASCELL. Could you just explain that to me again in English? If
I have a martini and fall on my head and it requires medical attention
and psychiatric treatment-
Mr. MICHEL. The law used to suggest that you couldn't get it.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, if my illness is due to my own negli-
gence, the law suggests I am not entitled to travel benefits?
Mr. MICHEL. The 1946 act has these exclusions.
Mr. FASCELL. Why should the test not be the criteria of negligence?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, it is more like a workman's compensation theory
here, that we send the individual abroad, put them in the situation
where they
Mr. FASCELL. Shoot themselves in the foot?
Mr. MICHEL. Where they may have an accident befall them. They
may have an automobile accident in which they were at fault. Do we
say that was due to intemperance and we will not evacuate or pay for
medical costs? That seems harsh. It is not the reality and it seemed
inappropriate to continue that exclusion in the statute.
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Mr. FASCELL. What happens in the worst case scenario? The one you
gave me is not a worst case scenario. What do you do in a worst case
scenario? Do you take care of them anyway?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. All right. You have a chronic alcoholic who takes nine
bottles of Valium and has to get to the States to get dried out and
get his head screwed back on. Is the Government going to pay for
that?
Mr. MICHEL. We would do that. We retain these exceptions
Mr. FASCELL. Why would you send that person back to work to start
with? You bring him back, but why would you send him back? You
have lost me somewhere. I want to be good too, but how good can I
be? Some spouse decides to hit the other spouse with a club, OK? It
requires immediate hospitalization. Are you going to evacuate the
spouse at Government expense?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, that is enough worst case scenarios. I am not
sure we will live through that one. [Laughter.]
Mr. MICHEL. Whether you would reassign that individual or whether
you would bring some disciplinary action against him or her is another
issue.
Mr. FASCELL. Or charge them for the cost of the medical treatment
or the evacuation? I don't know.
Mr. MICHEL. It gets into some pretty refined judgments.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't want to start a whole new line of lawsuits.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Don't you have a tremendous problem in that a lot
of people go in and profess that they were driven to this by their
assignment?
Mr. FASCELL. Then you ought to fire them.
Mr. MICHEL. Well.
Mr. FASCELL. But you can't?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes ; we can.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Two years later.
Mr. MICHEL. We can, but do you evacuate someone who needs med-
ical care, or don't you?
Mr. FASCELL. The answer to that, of course, is that you do, and you
worry about whose fault it was later.
Mr. MICHEL. That is what we thought, and we can provide in regu-
lation limitations on care.
Mr. FASCELL. You can provide your criteria for limitations on re-
imbursement or deduction.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes; we have taken that out of the law.
Mr. FASCCELL. Put into your regulations that you could consider the
right to take it out of the annuity of both spouses. That will solve a
lot of the family arguments. [Laughter.]
I am not sure I am convinced, but it sounds good.
Mr. MICHEL. The only other significant change is that at the top of
page 105 in section 921 (e), we have now provided that medical care for
a family member will not automatically terminate upon dissolution of
the marriage. The law has provided that in the event the employee dies
and the family member is in the hospital, you don't have to stop the
medical benefits.
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We have provided that the same humanitarian rule would apply if
a divorce occurs while the family member is in the middle of getting
treatment.
Mr. FASCELL. How is all of this care provided now? Under what
system? Is it direct, contractual, insurance, guarantees? What is it, a
combination of all of them?
Mr. MICHEL. It is a combination. The Foreign Service members par-
ticipate in the Government employees health insurance program, so
there is some insurance reimbursement.
Mr. FASCELL. What do you mean some? It is 100 percent, isn't it?
Mr. MICHEL. No.
Mr. FASCELL. Why not?
Mr. MICHEL. In part it is because the Foreign Service medical pro-
gram will pay for the costs of certain kinds of care for illnesses occa-
sioned by overseas duty, and the insurance policy sometimes then pro-
vides exclusions.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me see. Is that a contributory health plan?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. It is. Does it have a high option and a low option?
Mr. MICHEL. There are a lot of options.
Mr. FASCELL. Is there an option that starts from day one? There is.
Mr. MICHEL. I am sure there is.
Mr. FASCELL. It starts from day one and it covers 100 percent.
Mr. MICHEL. I am sure that is generally true.
Mr. READ. There are deductibles.
Mr. MICHEL. Not everyone has to have it, and there are a variety of
plans.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that, but it is an elective, is it not?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right. Some people have insurance coverage
that picks up some or all.
Mr. FASCELL. That is different. That is a horse of another color. We
re not talking about private insurance.
Mr. MICHEL. Under the Government employees health insurance
plan, that pays part of it. We have a medical unit in the Department
of State and we have medical units in Foreign Service posts abroad
that provide a certain level of first aid and minor care, and we pay
directly to hospitals and physicians.
Mr. FASCELL. How about military facilities? Is that on a reimburs-
able basis?
Mr. MICHEL. We use military facilities, yes, sir. It is reimbursable.
.'he Department of Defense hospital in Frankfurt, for example, is
sed by Foreign Service personnel.
Mr. READ. But our doctors have a responsibility for 60 000 people
broad, U.S. Government employees and their families. I
Mr. FASCELL. And some posts have medical units within the post.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. London has one.
Mr. MICHEL. A Navy facility.
Mr. FASCELL. Yes. They use a Navy facility.
All right.
Mr. MICHEL. That concludes chapter 9.
Mr. READ. This might be a good breaking point Mr. Chairman if
you choose, or we could go on. It is a new big subject in chapter 10.
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Mr. MICHEL. Labor-management.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's at least start on labor-management, anyway, since
I am fortunate enough to have an expert on my right.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Are you sure you want to do that?
Mr. FASCELL. I am not sure. What page does it begin on?
Mr. MICHEL. It begins on page 105.
Mr. FASCELL. How about just giving us the conceptual framework
of this first, just to refresh at least my mind. The conceptual frame-
work, the general theory-and then we will get into the specifics.
Mr. MICHEL. Formal labor-management relations in the service
really began in 1971, which was late in the day as compared to other
segments of the Government employee population. The emergence of
an interest on the part of the Foreign Service in a formal labor-
management system caused a lot of thinking and debate at that time.
There were problems in trying to fit existing classical labor-manage-
ment notions to a population the bulk of which is serving in posts
abroad and, for that matter, primarily in small posts abroad.
If you break down the Foreign Service population abroad, only a
small percentage are at the big posts with more than 200 people. Most
of them are at little posts with 20 people or less. The same population
is moving every 2 years.
Mr. FASCELL. So you don't have the immediate availability of the
bargaining unit.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right. The bargaining unit is a problem. Second,
the Foreign Service, by comparison with most Government offices, let's
say, has an extraordinarily high percentage of people who would fall
into the category of supervisors. You have very junior people supervis-
ing local employees, for example, at these small Foreign Service posts.
To exclude the supervisors from the bargaining unit, in the traditional
model, would exclude something like 40 percent of the people who
would otherwise participate.
You would probably wind up with a bargaining unit that repre-
sented essentially a certain level within the Foreign Service, with a
big gap of people then who were unrepresented people who were not
participating in the management of the personnel system, and who
had common interests with the people who were in the bargaining
unit and were represented.
They would be concerned about grievance procedures. They would
be concerned about assignment procedures. They would be concerned
about selection precepts for the selection boards. So in 1971, after a
lot of debate and discussion, there was promulgated an Executive
order which set up a separate labor-management system for the For-
eign Service designed to meet the need for representation under terms
and conditions that were compatible with Foreign Service working
conditions.
In 1978, the Civil Service Reform Act included a title VII, which
established the first statutory labor-management program for Gov-
ernment employees, and that program excludes the Foreign Service.
We have tried in this bill to borrow from the Executive order for
the Foreign Service and the experience we have gained in trying to
implement that Executive order and in living with it over the past
8 years, and we have also drawn on title VII in the Civil Service Re-
form Act to a considerable extent.
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Mrs. SCHROEDER. Not a whole lot.
Mr. MicHEL. To a considerable extent.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am not sure I agree with you there.
Mr. MICHEL. We have tried to avoid unnecessary disparities be-
tween labor-management in the Foreign Service and labor-manage-
ment in the civil service, while at the same time recognizing, confront-
ing, and providing in a different way where we thought this was neces-
sary to meet the needs of the Service.
Basically, there is a single, agencywide unit for each of the foreign
affairs agencies. We do not have separate units for different embassies
and consulates or different bureaus and offices within the Department
of State. The agencywide unit is where the community of interest lies
because people are moving all the time and there are common
concerns.
We include supervisors in the bargaining unit. We draw the line
at what the bill defines as a management official. Management officials
are excluded from the unit. That is somebody at the deputy assistant
secretary level or above.
The election procedures are similar to those for electing an exclusive
representative in the civil service. You have the added complication
that you have to have a worldwide election, which is necessarily a mail
ballot. We have provided, in the event there are more than two choices
to be made on that ballot, you can do that in one go-around.
If you have two competing unions who wish to be the exclusive rep-
resentative, you have the possibility of a runoff, which would be an-
other mail ballot and another month or two to circulate all this paper.
So we have provided for preferential balloting in that event..
Once a representative is elected, then that representative becomes
the exclusive agent of the employees in the agencywide unit to bargain
with management on terms and conditions of employment. The objec-
tive of these negotiations, this bargaining, is to arrive at agreements.
We would have a panel, which we have now, which would consider
the case where management and the labor representative could not
agree. And they would decide the case subject to review by the Secre-
tary of State. There is a charter of employee rights, which I think is
very similar to what is in the Civil Service Reform Act, assuring in-
dividuals the right to form, join, and assist in work with labor organi-
zations and protecting them against reprisals in the event that they do.
There is a relationship between labor-management relations and the
grievance system in that a grievance may be brought by a labor organi-
zation against management, as well as a grievance by an individual
against management.
To get into the specific details from the current Executive order or
how it differs from the statute and so on would get us into the section
by section.
Mr. READ. Just on another point of basic general approach, the Secre-
tary wanted to do this. This was not dragged from him at all. He
thought it was right, proper, and timely to do this in terms of put-
ting it in statutory form.
Second, we decided that we would not attempt to reshape the scope
of bargaining between management and employee representative units
at this point in time, so every effort was made not to deal with what
has emerged as what is negotiable and what is not, or alter that in this
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process. It just seemed to all of us that it should be a collective-bargain-
ing process that would be picked up as much as possible in toto and
placed into sound statutory form, ergo the minimum number of
changes of any sort in the actual scope of bargaining.
I think we have been faithful to that objective. There are a number
of suggestions that have been made for improvements in this chapter
and f am sure you will want to get into them in detail at a later point.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am sure we will.
Mr. FASCELL. Well, let's start.
Mrs.' SCHROEDER. As I say, I understand you want to preserve it as
you knew and loved it from before. But I think there is something to
be said for having all Government service come under title VII or be
similar to title VII if for no other reason than the court interpretation
of the language and so on and so forth.
I have always felt, too, that your grievance procedure and your unit
problems are really incredible because how you can have the super-
visors and the staff in the same unit
Mr. MICHEL. That seems to be the least of our problems, though, in
practice.
Mr. READ. In practice.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. It may be, although it, may be that with times
changing, it is not in the long run. Maybe it was because you were late
getting into the field and people have not become that comfortable
with the process and so forth. But I really have a lot of questions about
where you deviate from title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act. I
don't know if I really want to go through all of that at this hour of the
afternoon.
Mr. FASCELL. Why don't we just pick that up right there and get into
the specifics? You know what Mrs. Schroeder wants now and what we
are looking for. So we will just take it point by point.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. And we might as well face it. Each change might as
well be identified both from the title and the Executive order, and ex-
plain it and see where we are. I don't know any other way to go at it.
Next Tuesday, 9:30.
The subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the subcommittees adjourned.]
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
'COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met in joint session at 2 p.m. in room 2172, Ray-
burn House Office Building, Hon. Dante B. Fascell and Hon. Patricia
Schroeder (joint chairpersons) presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. The subcommittees will come to order.
We meet today to continue our consideration of the Foreign Service
Act of 1979. Our distinguished witness today is Dr. Henry Kissinger
whose past and present accomplishments need no embellishments. We
are delighted to see you back this year. We have spent much time to-
gether profitably.
I would like to extend a warm welcome to you and express my
appreciation on behalf of the committee for your taking the time to
be with us on a matter that is of great importance to a lot of people.
Although the issue seems rather bureaucratic and a bit technical, it is
important because it has such a direct impact on the well-being of
those who are charged with responsibility for the formulation and
the implementation of the foreign policy of the United States.
Therefore it serves us all well to look at these matters very care-
fully with a great deal of concern and compassion and intelligence
because the outcome of our deliberations is important to the success of
our future foreign policy. We have to pay our respects to those people
who labor long and hard to carry out the directives of the Secretary
because that is a difficult job at best, regardless of who is the Secretary.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I join in welcoming you here. My opening statement is posed in the
form of a question because even though I did not get to deal with you
on the Foreign Affairs Committee, having been a student of yours
I learned you ask the first question before he asks one of us. So as
you give your prepared statement, one of the things I think that I
have been the most worried about, and these hearings have had a
bearing on, has been a series of articles that has appeared and prob-
ably the one most recently was September 6 in the Washington Post
which I will put in the record, dealing with our relationship with
Mexico. They deal with some of the blunders and faux pas we have had
in dealings on natural gas or illegal immigration.
(443)
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There seems to be in the tone of those articles a feeling that some-
how we are able to zero in and do the most abrasive thing. It is often
much more a question of style than substance but we have not been
able to do that very well. It ties into these hearings because we have
heard a lot of comments about the lack of minorities in policymaking
decisions in our professional diplomatic corps. We had many minority
groups testifying here about that. There is a severe lack of Hispanics
and Chicanos in the Foreign Service. It appears to be almost a cloning
of white males from the eastern establishment.
Mr. FASCELL. Harvard, you can say.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. 'If you looked good in a turtleneck you have 10 more
points. So one of the things, as you are directing your thoughts in this
area. I would appreciate some of your analysis as to whether or not this
would help us substantially. Are we getting in trouble because. of our
professional diplomats who are not reflecting our society or is it poli-
tical appointees getting us in trouble or do we just have a wonderful
propensity to stay in trouble? Can we do anything to deal with those
things and I think our neighbor, Mexico, has been the one most in
focus.
I thank you and apologize for asking the first question but I learned
that long ago from you at Harvard.
I was disturbed to read, in the Washington Post of September 6,
1979, an article by Marlise Simons on the deteriorating relations be-
tween the United States and Mexico. I ask that the article be included
in our hearing record.
[The article referred to follows:]
(From the Washington Post, Sept. 6, 19791
IMPASSE ON GAB DIMS PROSPECT OF CARTER-LOPEZ AccoRDs'
(By Marlise Simons)
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 5-The breakdown of U.S.-Mexican talks on natural gas
sales last week appears to assure that no major accords will be reached when
Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo goes to Washington later this month for
talks with President Carter.
The hope here that an important agreement could be initialed by the two
presidents ended when high-level negotiators for the two sides once again failed
to settle on a price for Mexican natural gas sales to the United States.
With no new gas negotiations scheduled before the Sept. 28-29 visit, the two
presidents will have little else to discuss except for the equally thorny issues
of commerce and illegal alien workers, on which they are no nearer agreement.
Nearly six months have passed since President Carter visited Mexico, attempt-
ing both to clear the air after the U.S. government's blocking of a gas deal and
to make a high-level commitment to seek to resolve several other important
differences.
The lack of significant progress on the issues stems not only from their com-
plexities or from lack of sufficient political will. It also reflects the difficulty of
harmonizing the interests of two countries gripped by change : The United States
trying to adjust to its new vulnerability in energy and Mexico sorting out its
new energy wealth. This has opened up entirely new areas of friction.
The latest deadlock in the gas talks, allowing the most intense negotiating
round so far, has once again produced less comments on the "badly strained
nations" and "a new low between the neighbors."
Diplomats of both countries dismiss these assessments and say that the main
problem with the elusive gas deal is that the decision to hold government-to-
government talks was heralded as the most significant result of Carters February
visit here.
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"Unfortunately, gas has now become the gauge of U.S.-Mexican relations,"
said a U.S. official, adding -that last week's U.S. mission, headed by Deputy
Secretary of State Warren Christopher, had come here with instructions to do
the utmost to close the deal before the presidents meet. When they failed, Mexican
officials briefly considered calling off Lopez Portillo's visit to Washington.
Diplomats on both sides now dismiss the deadlock as just one of the many
commercial arrangements that fall through every day.
Yet the gas saga is symptomatic of U.S.-Mexican relations because of the
misunderstanding and posturing on both sides that has accompanied it for the
last two years.
Part of the posturing is that both sides claim they do not need the deal at
all. Americans say there is a natural gas glut in the United States and the
"high" Mexican asking price is unrealistic and unappealing.
A key Mexican official recently said here that "the president believes he's doing
Carter a favor by offering to sell gas to the U.S." Moreover, since the fall of
1977 when then-energy secretary James Schlesinger vetoed the first gas contract,
Mexico decided to keep most of the surplus gas at home.
A vast pipeline network is ready and Mexican industry is switching from oil
to gas as the prime energy source. The national electricity and oil companies,
it was announced recently, use 60 percent of Mexico's gas production. The surplus
available for the United States, it is said here, has therefore fallen from 2
billion cubic feet a day to 300 million.
"And if necessary we will keep burning it off," a Mexican official said.
There is also a simmering distrust that stems from the vastly differing national
interests, negotiating style and value systems of the two neighbors. This
accounts for the frequent misunderstandings.
A few weeks ago, for example, when U.S. Ambassador Patrick Lucey, in a
call on the Mexican president, talked about gas prices, Lopez Portillo reportedly
said his problem was not with prices but with principles.
The result of the talk reportedly was that Lucey believed Mexico had agreed
to the U.S. price offer. American negotiators were hastily summoned. As they
arrived in Mexico, however, they found no such agreement. Angered U.S. officials
then reportedly told U.S. reporters that Mexico had reneged on the deal. This
in turn infuriated the Mexicans.
Last week the talks stalemated as the two sides appeared closer than ever to
a settlement. Mexico had asked $3.75 per thousand cubic feet of gas, and the
United States had offered $3.50. Mexico proposed to split the difference and
settle on $3.625. Both sides reportedly agreed. Then, according to a Mexican
official, the United States tried to ;change the already agreed delivery date from
November to next April. Apprised of this, the Mexican president reportedly told
an aide, "That's enough."
The U.S. mission, which had postponed its departure to reach a happy end,
returned to Washington.
The next day Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda curtly told a news
conference that no new gas talks were expected.
"Perhaps later, when circumstances have changed," Castaneda said. "And
next year we'll have to negotiate on the basis of new prices."
At times the Mexicans and Americans seem to enjoy sparring and muscle
flexing instead of trying to avoid it. Last week's flap over the U.S. requests
that-Mexico pay the cleanup costs of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a case
in point.
The Mexican reaction was nothing less than nationwide outburst of nation-
alism. First Lopez Portillio condemned the U.S. publication of the request and
then said flatly "no" as a matter of principle.
Then all seven political parties announced they were "rallying around" the
president while newspapers and magazines printed anti-U.S. headlines, car-
toons and paid advertisements.
As the dust settled, a U.S. official commented coolly. "The fuss was only
about a few million dollars. But frankly, we didn't have a very good case."
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Our policy toward Mexico seems to be one of
bluster. On issue after issue, our Government takes actions which
almost seem calculated to raise the ire of the Mexicans. I am not just
speaking of our ill-fated effort to purchase much-needed natural gas
from energy-rich Mexico. I am also speaking about our Government's
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basic inability to come to grips with the issue of illegal immigration,
and about our Government's protectionist attitude when it comes to
purchasing agricultural commodities from Mexico, and about our
Government's abrasive manner in demanding that cleanup costs for
the recent Gulf oil spill be paid by Mexico. In all these instances, the
failure of our diplomatic effort appears to be due as much to style as
to substance.
The Washington Post article relates a history of misunderstanding
and posturing leading to mistrust and suspicion. It talks about vastly
different negotiating styles and misread signals. I am concerned by
this very sad diplomatic showing. I would have hoped that the pro-
fessional diplomats in the State Department could have avoided this
situation. I do not know whether our diplomats or our political ap-
pointees are to blame. I do note that our former colleague who was
recently appointed to be a special ambassador for Mexican-American
relations cannot speak Spanish.
One cause of this problem is clear. The Foreign Service has been
and continues to be an overwhelmingly white and male institution.
Despite the fact that the United States has a significant number of
Hispanics who are highly qualified to perform diplomatic assign-
ments, there are no major decisionmakers in Mexican-American rela-
tions who are Hispanic.
Denver, my hometown, and the entire Western part of the country
have many, many individuals of Mexican descent who are familiar
with the Mexican way of doing business. These people are highly
competent, completely loyal to the United States, and willing to work
in the State Department. The State Department has, however, turned
a cold shoulder on these people. It has a Foreign Service Entrance
Exam which discriminates against all minorities. It has a promotion
and tenure system which appears, at times, to be little more than an
old boy's network. It has not recruited minorities and it has not made
them feel welcome.
I believe that if we had a few Chicanos working on Mexican-Ameri-
can relations, some of these seemingly intractable problems could be
worked out. A few Hispanics in the State Department might keep
our Government from making the awful blunders which have char-
acterized our recent relations with Mexico. Problems like natural gas,
illegal immigration, and trade might be cut down to size if the United
States utilized one of its most valuable resources, American citizens
of Mexican descent.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you.
Dr. Kissinger, I know you have a prepared statement so why don't
you proceed as you will.
STATEMENT OF FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE
HENRY A. KISSINGER
Mr. KISSINGER. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the com-
mittee, I would like to say first of all what a pleasure it is for me to
appear here. I've testified here in this room frequently, and I have
very warm recollections of my encounters in this room.
Before I read my prepared statement, I would like to make two or
three informal remarks. First I would like to stress that I volunteered
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for this testimony. I was not asked by the Department of State to do it,
and I volunteered because of the importance I attached to this
legislation.
I cannot be said to have been one of the. greatest admirers of the
Foreign Service when I was serving in the White House as a National
Security Advisor. But when I had to work with the Foreign Service
as Secretary of State I became convinced that it is one of the most
dedicated and one of the ablest and one of the most indispensable
groups of men and women in our Government.
In our system with its frequent alternation in high office, it is indis-
pensable to have a professional corps that represents the continuity
of our foreign policy, that operates professionally, that looks at for-
eign policy from the point of view of the general interest and while
of course there are exceptions in any large organization, in my experi-
ence I have never worked with as able a group and as dedicated a
group. As I read this proposal, this proposed legislation, it is an
attempt to strengthen the professionalism.
It seeks to insure a recognition of measure and it attempts to open
up the career ladder to the most promising men and women.
So with your permission I will now read my formal statement and I
don't know how you would like me to deal with Mrs. Schroeder's ques-
tion. Should I do that in the question period or how do you propose to
handle that, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. FASCELL. Dr. Kissinger, I would assume, knowing you, that it
is already covered in your statement but you go ahead.
Mr. KISSINGER. I must say she achieved her purpose, she did catch
me on something that is not in my statement.
Mr. FASCELL. When you conclude your formal statement, you may
address yourself to that.
Mr. KissINGER. I will finish my statement and then address myself
to that question.
This country and its leaders are fortunate to have a diplomatic serv-
ice second to none in its professional competence and dedication to the
public interest. For 8 years, first as National Security Adviser and
then as Secretary of State, I was privileged to work with the Foreign
Service both in Washington and at our posts abroad.
From that dual experience, I can attest to the heavy reliance of our
political leadership on the expertise of our career diplomats for the
successful conduct of foreign affairs. With the complexity and multi-
plicity of our international interests in the world today, there is no
substitute for a strong Foreign Service. Presidents who fail to use
fully the institutional strengths and loyalties of the Service do so at
risk.
The Congress was wise to exempt the Foreign Service from the
operative provisions of the Civil Service Reform Act last year. The
case for maintaining a strong, separate Foreign Service is clear. The
conduct of foreign relations differs in substance and form from other
Federal services. Given the importance of the issues involved, members
of the Foreign Service must be of highest quality and professionalism,
heavily aware of our own interests as well as foreign languages and
cultures. They must be willing to accept obligations different in na-
ture and more' extensive by those in other civilian services.
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For example, they must be willing and able to serve in a wide variety
of posts abroad, to undertake a dozen different assignments during a
typical career, and often to live for long periods with deprivation of
amenities, hardship, crisis, stress, and sometimes physical danger. In
short, they must be truly dedicated to the service of their country.
But the Foreign Service has had to live under a charter which has
grown increasingly obsolete and cumbersome in recent years. Again
the Congress was wise to call on the executive branch in 1976 to sub-
mit a "comprehensive plan" to improve and simplify the personnel
systems of the Department of State and the Foreign Service. Time
prevented us from filing more than an interim report in response toy
that request during my tenure as Secretary.
I applaud Secretary Vance on completing that process and sending
forward a bill which would accomplish long overdue reforms. I
strongly support that bill.
Although I do not claim familiarity with some of the detailed per-
sonnel provisions of the bill, I am satisfied that it would effect the
three changes most needed to strengthen the Foreign Service and to
enable it to meet more effectively the challenges ahead.
First, the bill recognizes the clear distinction between the Foreign
Service and the civil service. As recognized in the interim report filed
in January of 1977 by then Deputy Under Secretary Larry Eagle-
burger at my direction, earlier efforts to induce into the Foreign Serv-
ice persons whose skills and services are needed only in domestic as-
signments were ineffective and unrealistic.
The Foreign Service should be limited to those obligated and needed
to serve on a worldwide basis, and the presence in the Service of several
hundred persons who have never and will never serve abroad should
not continue. The conversion features of the bill appear to protect fully
the rights of individuals concerned.
Second, the administration proposal would consolidate and codify
the personnel system and laws of the Foreign Service-as also sug-
gested in the 1977 interim report. The present multiple array of per-
sonnel categories and subcategories deters good management and makes
individual inequities hard to avoid. The hundreds of amendments
passed to the Foreign Service Act of 1946 and the many personnel laws
which affect Service personnel need restatement and updating.
The pending bill provides a contemporary reaffirmation of the role
of the Foreign Service, which should provide an excellent charter for
many years to come.
Finally, and most importantly, the pending measure would provide
needed closer linkage between granting career status, advancement,
compensation, and retention in the Foreign Service and continuing
high performance requirements. I am frank to say that although this
was the intent of the 1946 act, it has not always been reflected in prac-
tice. The intended "up or out" principle has been breached too often.
Officers at the top career ambassador and career minister ranks have
been immune from performance evaluations and selection out, and
sometimes stay on long past their prime periods of service.
Presidents and Secretaries have often had to dip well down into the
ranks to find prime candidates for ambassadorial and other key assign-
ments. When legal challen es or legislative deferrals of pay raises have
blocked mandatory and voluntary retirements, it has proven impossible
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to advance and reward the most promising, younger, and middle-grade
officers at a satisfactory rate, and has made it impossible to retain some
of the best in recent years.
A number of constructive and creative features of the bill help over-
come these structural defects after a transition period. I would com-
mend several such provisions in particular;
Annual selection-out procedures for all career members of the Serv-
ice, from the most senior to the most junior;
Retention in service at the most senior ranks will require the posi?-
tive act of extension of renewable 3-year appointments after expiration
of brief time-in-class limits; and
Entry into the Senior Foreign Service would require promotion of
a rigorous new senior threshold which is well designed to help assure
that only the most capable reach the top ranks; and performance pay,
and added in-step pay increases for outstanding and meritorious serv-
ice, would provide new incentives.
All of these provisions and others will be administered and safe-
guarded against abuse by selection board procedures.
In summary, I would urge your support for the proposed new For-
eign Service Act. It will preserve and strengthen the best traditions of
the Service, and make it possible for its members to better perform
their essential role and missions now and in the future.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much for that very concise and clear
statement of the objectives of the Department's proposal for a Foreign
Service Act of 1979. Now if you would like to address yourself to the
other question, you may do so.
Mr. KissINGER. Chairwoman Schroeder has preempted me with her
question by getting it in first. She has given me 5 minutes to think
about an answer, which might be unwise, but at any rate, it seems to
me that two questions were raised. One, the relationship, our relation-
ship, to Mexico; and, second, the impact of the type of personnel that
is serving us abroad on that relationship, and specifically whether the
shortcomings in that relationship are due to the inadequate representa-
tion of minorities in a broader spectrum of American life in the For-
eign Serivce.
I believe that our relations with Mexico are of extraordinary impor-
tance. Within a measurable period of time we will for the first time
in our history have as our neighbor a country which will by the turn
of the century approach major status. It is already in the upper group
of the developing nations. How we manage such a relationship is of
very great consequence, not only in North America but in our relation-
ship to other developing nations, and developed nations for that
matter.
The immediate urgency is that Mexico as a result of the discovery
of large resources of energy, will have to make some fundamental de-
cisions about its own development as it develops its energy resources.
It has observed that economic development by itself cannring major
political problems both internally and foreign policy problems in the
sense that whatever choices it makes, can either bring it into conflict
with the United States or into a new cooperative relationship with the
United States.
It seems to me that the energy problem with Mexico can only be
dealt with in a larger context in which both Mexican national aspira-
tions and our longer term purposes can be recognized.
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Now I believe that we have not always approached Mexico on that
philosophical ladder. We have had too much of a tendency to deal
with Mexico in terms of the issues that arise, immigrants, competition
from particular Mexican manufacturers or agricultural products, nar-
cotics, all of which are immediate irritants but which are not germane
entirely to the fundamental decisions that Mexico has to take.
In addition, we are dealing here with a proud country of a complex
history and great ambivalence toward the United States partly as a
result of its history. I would think that a new approach to Mexico is
essential, and indeed if it is not taken and-if we permit the day-to-
day affairs to fester, they may become insoluble, and I also do not be-
lieve that Mexico can be approached only on the basis of energy. We
have to place energy into a context that is also relevant to Mexico's
purposes and not use it to our own.
Now to what extent has the composition of our Foreign Service af-
fected our failure so far to address Mexico in the right manner. Inci-
dentally, I am not making this a partisan issue. I am speaking here of
a general relationship. To what extent has that been affected by the
composition of the Foreign Service? I would think on the whole that
the Foreign Service is not the culprit in that relationship. On the
whole, it has been national orientation toward looking at the world
in terms of East-West rather than, in terms of North-South, and we
have not addressed as a nation creatively the problem of organizing
a sense of community in the Northern Hemisphere to the same degree
as we have addressed ourselves to Atlantic relationships and South
Pacific relationships as with Japan. Yet, in terms of our long-term
future I believe Mexico will be as important to us if not more so than
some of our traditional close allies.
So I think that the major shortcomings have been at the policy-
making level. At the same time I believe that it is important to open
up the Foreign Service to more representative approaches and more
representative attitudes of the American people primarily in order
to bring that perspective to the attention of policymakers.
I do not like to think of Foreign Service officers serving their coun-
tries as ethnic representatives. They are Foreign Service officers of the
United States and not of any particular constituency, but it would cer-
tainly help the policymaking projects and the prospectives that are
brought to bear if a wider representation of various groups in our
society and of other educational institutions than those that have pre-
dominated could be achieved.
But I believe this legislation will be an important step in that
direction, and I think that certainly during the administrations with
which I was familiar, as well as in this administration, a conscious
effort has been made in the direction that you have suggested.
Mrs. SCYMOEDER. If I could ask you then a followup question. I
totally agree with what you are saying : You do not want them to be
ethnic representatives. They still represent the United States. I am
pleased with what you are saying because I think it can help syn-
thesize all of us in the policymaking area.
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The other very sticky issue we have had to deal with here is the
issue of the age 60 mandatory retirement for all people in the Foreign
Service.
As you know, in the Congress there has been an awful lot of pres-
sure to do away with all mandatory retirement. You may not have
thought about this issue yet, and you may want to submit your answer
for the record. But that is going to be a very difficult issue for these
two committees to deal with.
You know, there has been a lawsuit and many people were allowed
to stay in. I only ask you that question because I think a lot of your
statement related to the problems of not having upward slots to move
people into that were very talented.
Mr. KISSINGER. This is an issue that I have thought about, but
I would appreciate if I could, on reflection to this or other questions.
send in written amplifications.
Mr. FASCELL. We will be delighted to have any additional comments
you care to make in writing, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. KISSINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is very impor-
tant that the careers of the Foreign Service officers be relatively homo-
geneous; that is to say, all of them be available to serve abroad and
rotate back home on roughly the same pattern and according to the
needs of the Service.
It is the experience, on which I am sure the Department can supply
you the relevant statistics, that with each-as you go up in the age
groups, the ability and willingness to serve abroad diminishes and,
therefore, if there is no mandatory retirement age, you run the risk of
a group of individuals whose contribution to the Service is bound to be
of a different nature than that of their colleagues and are, therefore,
in a special category by reason of age.
Also, as I understand this legislation, it provides the discretion to the
Secretary of State to extend individuals beyond the retirement age if
there is a special need for their service.
So' l feel that this mandatory retirement age is especially necessary
in the case of a Service in which ability to serve abroad is an impor-
tant criterion in addition to the fact that there must be more rapid
movement upward than has been the case recently.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Derwinski.
Mr. DERWINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I would like to pick up a point in your testimony
where you spoke of the difficulty under existing law of applying what
you refer to as the intended up-or-out principle. In other words, you
found it difficult to pursue this, and I presume your predecessor did.
In this bill we are trying to give the Secretary more administrative
flexibility in that direction.
This seems, if I interpret your total statement correctly, a key to
keeping, as well as the proper placement of, aggressive, effective young
diplomats. Is that a misstatement on my part?
Mr. KISSINGER. That is correct. What this legislation would do is,
first, reinforce the congressional intent that the up-and-out principle be
strictly carried out; and by establishing uniform procedures and uni-
form categories of personnel, it would make it easier to accomplish it.
Second, with the establishment of the Senior Foreign Service,
there is the provision that the appointment be on a 3-year renewable
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452
basis so that in addition to the annual up-and-out review of the selec-
tion board, there is a 3-year review in which the appointment cannot
be renewed, which has a possibility of not renewing the appointment in
the Service unless it is judged to be in the interest of the country and
Service to extend it.
So there is an additional hurdle that permits honorable retirement
in which there is slightly less invidious selection board reluctance to
select out no matter how many criteria you give them, particularly
when you get into the upper end. But not to renew an appointment, I
think, is psychologically easier than to select out at the end of 1 year.
At any rate, it establishes another hurdle and another way of accom-
plishing an honorable retirement.
Mr. DERWINSKI. On an entirely different subject, the bill before us
contains a limit of 5 percent of noncareer personnel to assist the Secre-
tary and President in carrying out foreign policy for that given ad-
ministration. When we reformed the Federal civil service a year ago,
the figure established for noncareer personnel was 10 percent. In other
words, twice the number that we are allocating for the noncareer per-
sonnel in Foreign Service. Do you have any comment on that percent-
age or the entire practice of noncareer personnel?
Mr. KISSINGER. I have not really thought through which percentage
is the right one. There is some advantage in having some noncareer
personnel in for relieving purposes. When I was in office, I made it a
practice to appoint to key positions mostly Foreign Service personnel.
I think almost all of the Assistant Secretaries when I was in office were
career because it seemed to me that if this is the Service that has to
carry out a foreign policy, it must also be given the responsibility for
the high office. So, offhand, I would like to think about whether 5 per-
cent is too restrictive. I would not have found it too restrictive, but I
would like to think about that a little more and perhaps submit a
written answer.
Mr. DERWINSKI. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Mica.
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no questions.
Mr. FAS'CELL. Mr. Buchanan.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I appreciate very much your introductory remarks,
as well as your statement, Dr. Kissinger. As someone who was around
at the time, it seemed to me you went through this process of gaining
appreciation from the Department of State and the Foreign Service
personnel through the experience of serving as Secretary of State.
Mr. KISSINCER. Absolutely. I am a convert and perhaps therefore
more fanatical than the true believers.
Mr. BUCHANAN. But as you are aware, perceptions can be as im-
portant as realities, in particular in the democratic form of govern-
ment, and I do think there are so many people here in the Congress and
around the country who have not yet gone through that conversion
experience, whose perceptions of the Department of State and Foreign
Service officers is much less favorable than the reality of what I too
believe to be a very fine Foreign Service.
So I think you render us some significant service in throwing your
weight and your enormous prestige so clearly on their side and speak-
ing in their behalf.
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Mr. KISSINGER. I think as our foreign policy becomes more and more
complicated it will become impossible for our political leadership to
handle it adequately unless there is a reservoir of people who represent
continuity and a perception of our national interest that is essentially
nonpartisan and that has matured over long periods of service.
I know what some of the standard objections are and there are orga-
nizational problems in the Department of State that have nothing to
do with personnel, that sometimes slow down procedures. But in terms
of personnel, I believe that it is a truly outstanding group and that
would be further strengthened by the passage of this act.
Mr. BUCHANAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you. Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Secretary, I would like to say as someone who used
to work for you in the bowels of State, that I welcome you particularly
to this committee. I am wondering if you would comment as someone
who has held a unique position, on one hand having been head of the
NSC and the other, head of the Department of State, whether you feel
that in retrospect there is a conflict between these two positions and is
there anything institutionally or legislatively that ought to be consid-
ered about enhancing either the power of NSC or the Secretary of State
in the field of foreign affairs.
I must say I am biased to think the Secretary of State should be the
primary position because constitutionally he is more responsible to the
Congress itself. Would you care to comment in that direction?
Mr. KISSINGER. You know that when I was security advisor I did not
always support the prerogatives of either the Secretary of State or of
the Department.
Mr. LEACH. Or the President himself.
Mr. KlssINGER. I think it is true in any event, a President will sub-
stantially condition foreign policy according to a style with which he is
comfortable. There is no point in our reviewing how the position of the
security advisor came to be administered as it was during the period
of the Nixon Presidency. I would not basically favor some legislation
that would prescribe how to do it, but as a general proposition, I would
say this.
The principal foreign policy advisor of the President should be the
Secretary of State. The principal manager of our foreign policy should
be the Secretary of State. I do not think it is a good practice evert
though I participated in a system that violated the principle that I am
now putting forward, I do not think it is a good practice to try to con-
trol the Department of State or the Secretary of State through a per-
sonal adviser of the President.
It is an invitation to institutional irresponsibility because you have a
large department which, when it is cut out of the policymaking proc-
ess, is bound to do something and what it then does is likely to tilt the .
policymaking process in a direction that may not be desired by the
President simply through the way of bureaucratic inertia and through
ignorance.
Therefore, I think if the President has not full confidence in his Sec-
retary of State, he should replace him and get somebody in whom lie
does have full confidence. The security advisor's principal role should
be to make sure that the major options which are interdepartmental in
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nature get to the President, and to act as a traffic cop and as a sort of a
substantive conscience in the development of the options but not as an
alternative center of policy, and not as somebody that foreign govern-
ments perceive as a rival source of influence.
I say this with all regard for the President incumbent and it is not
aimed at the preincumbent. Having operated the system from both
ends, it is P. view that I have developed.
Mr. LEACH. To take that a step forward, would you hold the same
view on the relationship with the Secretary of State to any ambassador
at large position? For example, should the area of foreign affairs, any
area of foreign affairs, be carved out to any specific individual in a
responsible sense outside the confines of the Secretary of State?
Mr. KISSINGER. You are now going to get me into major trouble with
a dear friend whom I respect enormously, but I believe as a general
proposition, ambassadors at large ought to report through the Secre-
tary of State and under the general direction of the Secretary of State.
Of course, every ambassador is an ambassador of the President, not
of the Secretary of State, and no one can prevent a President from ask-
ing whoever's advice he chooses in policy formulation. But I think as a
general proposition negotiators should be under the general direction
of the Secretary of State.
Mr. LEACH. There has been a good deal of discussion in recent years,
in recent months particularly, that there may have been some intel-
ligence breakdowns. Do you believe that ambassadors in the field have
sufficient authority vis-a-vis their station chiefs and also in Washing-
ton; do you believe there are adequate institutional mechanisms to as-
sure that the Department of State has sufficient influence over intel-
ligence decisions which impact on foreign policy?
Mr. KISSINGER. There have been such major changes in the organiza-
tion and control of intelligence, even since I was in office, that my in-
formation my not be fully up to date. You have two conflicting prob-
lems. One is-I am doing this as viewed from the perspective of the
President-one is that it maybe that the ambassador does not always
have full control, even though he has theoretical control, over intel-
ligence operations.
The other one is that the intelligence community and the Depart-
ment of State, knowing they have to get along with each other, may
make some bureaucratic arrangement with each other that may pre-
vent alternatives from coming up for Presidential consideration and I
can think of two or three instances during my period in office of either
tendencies where the ambassador, though in theoretical control, did
not fully understand what the intelligence community was doing,
and in other cases where some bureaucratic nonaggression treaty was
made which prevented alternatives from being accomplished up to the
President in time.
Mr. LEACH. In recent years we seem to be seeing a steady erosion of
the functions for which the Department of State is responsible. For
example, early in this administration we saw the Bureau of Educa-
tion and Cultural Affairs being transformed to ICA. We have a serious
consideration currently being given to putting commerce functions
with INS and there are proposals within Congress to move certain
commercial work to the Department of Commerce or elsewhere.
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If this trend continues, one can visualize the CIA playing a greater
role in the political arena or maybe even GAO coming into the admini-
strative function.
I wonder if you would care to comment on what is a partial break-
up of the Department of State that is occuring, with some further
challenges in the future on-whether foreign affairs is primarily polit-
ical, or the economic political aspects as well as the intelligence as-
pects must be more closely defined, and whether there is a poten-
tial problem developing where the Secretary of State will have a
lower level of jurisdiction. And is this proper or should it be the power
of State to consolidate in these areas rather than elsewhere?
Mr. KISSINOER. Before I answer this question, I would like to expand
on the previous answer, the one about whether ambassadors should
report through the Secretary of State. I maintain that is a position I
favor but I want to make very clear that insofar as it may be applied
to the Middle East negotiations that I have the highest regard for Am-
bassador Strauss, that I was simply talking about the general organiza-
tion in principle and not about personalities here.
Now, as to your question, I believe that the biggest foreign policy
problem the United States States confronts is to get an overall strategic
or geopolitical national view of our purposes in the world and of our
interest.
Second, I believe the difference between successful and mediocre pol-
icy is in a series of nuances across a broad spectrum of decisions and,
therefore, I am uneasy about the increasing fragmentation of our for-
eign policy and the difficulty of creating eiter procedures or periods of
time for reflection which will permit this general approach.
Now, I have to say that part of the reason for that fragmentation is
not just organizational decisions by the White House; it is also Con-
gressional decisions in which particular constituencies believe they can
gain greater influence by fragmenting off some part of the decision-
making process.
I also believe even though when I was in office I had no opportunity
to change it and I have not fully thought through how to change it,
I think the internal organization of the Department of State is too
fragmented and does not lend itself ideally to this overall approach to
foreign policy but, as a general proposition, I would believe that
there must be some focal point below the President where the various
considerations come together so that when they get to the President
he has a range of choices that are rather carefully articulated rather
than a series of tactical decisions.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Gilman.
Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is a pleasure having the former Secretary with us once again.
It seems natural to have you here before us, Mr. Secretary. We miss
seeing you here.
With relation to some of the aspects of this new proposal, I did have
a great deal of reservation about our whole Civil Service reform and
I am concerned that we may be taking the merit out of the merit sys.
tem. I hope we are not taking the service out of the Foreign Service by
some of these proposals.
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I am concerned about the up and out principle. I am wondering
whether there is sufficient protection built into this new procedure to
protect those who rise rapidly and as a result may be forced out of the
Foreign Service. My concern is about those cases where tneir rise is
primarily due to their good qualifications and good service.
There is a limitation of time, I believe 5 years, and at a maximum
grade. If the Secretary is not disposed to extend that time, then he
may be forced out of the Service. I would welcome your thoughts
about whether there should be some protection built into the system
to protect those who rise rapidly through the Foreign Service.
Mr. KISSINGER. Of course, it seems to me there are two problems
with respect to those who rise rapidly. One is that some people are ex-
tremely good at lower levels but then reach their ceiling and you can-
not always be sure that high performance at a lower level guarantees
high performance beyond a certain level of performance, so, therefore,
it is quite possible for somebody to be promoted rapidly and then to
be selected out on merit.
The second issue is the one you raised, where somebody has per-
formed outstandingly at all levels, including the high level, but then
because of the selection out procedures and because he is relatively
younger than the other he finds himself in a position where he is
forced out because there are not sufficient vacancies or because he comes
up against the abstract provisions of a law.
Again, as I told the chairman before we entered this room, I cannot
pretend that I have studied all the provisions or the alternative provi-
sions of this bill. My temptation, my quick temptation would be to
say that I would have confidence in whoever the incumbent Secretary
of State is to retain in the Service those that he considers essential for
his mission because his own performance depends on it.
If he has any sense of responsibility to the Foreign Service, as every
Secretary of State that I know has either had or developed, he will
try to make sure that no person is selected out simply on a routine
basis.
But since I do not know what protection could be built in, I, in read-
ing this bill, was not bothered by this problem but that is not necessary.
If you would let me know what specific protection you would have
in mind, I could comment perhaps more lucidly.
Mr. GILMAN. I welcome that opportunity and I will pass on some-
thing to you.
[Mr. Kissinger's additional comments, as requested, follow:]
The "up or out" principle is one of the long-standing and distinguishing
features of the Foreign Service which has helped to maintain its high standards.
This principle is strengthened in the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979 by
Section 641(b) which provides that once a member of the Senior Foreign Service
has been in grade without promotion beyond a limited period of time, he or she
shall be retired unless the annual promotion boards recommend that his or her
appointment be extended.
This renewable career appointment extension procedure safeguards the in-
dividual, because it assures that his or her continuation in the Service is con-
sidered on its merits by an independent selection board. At the same time it
also serves the interests of the Department and the Service because it encourages
the advancement and retention of the ablest persons. Those who advance most
rapidly to the top would not be forced out arbitrarily because of the extension
feature of the bill.
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I would like to reemphasize my unequivocal support for retention of the man-
datory retirement provisions of this bill. A basic premise of the bill is that only
those able and willing to accept assignments anywhere in the world be retained
in the Foreign Service. As a person ages, there is an increased likelihood that
either the person or his or her spouse or family may develop health or other prob-
lems that restrict the person's availability. This is especially true for those who
spend their careers under the stresses encountered in the Foreign Service.
The Secretary of State could not staff our overseas posts or maintain a viable
career Foreign Service if every person who developed a health problem were
retired. But there are limits to the number of persons with assignment limitations
who can be accommodated. I believe the present system provides a reasonable
balance in this area and should be retained.
As I noted in my testimony, the Secretary is now and would continue to be au-
thorized to make exceptions to this general rule. Furthermore, it does not now
nor would it in the proposed bill apply to Presidential appointees to statutory
positions. These two exceptions temper this rule so that it is at once affecting
assignments of outstanding members of the Service.
On further investigation, I am satisfied that the 5 percent limit on noncareer
SFS appointments is appropriate. It would not impose an undue restriction on
any administration's ability to carry out the nation's foreign policy in that it does
not apply to those serving in domestic positions only or as Presidential appointees
in statutory positions. On the other hand, for the first time the bill would pro-
vide an explicit limitation on noncareer appointments which is very important
in ensuring that the career service, which is a unique repository of expertise and
experience, is not cut off from senior responsibilities.
Mr. GILMAN. With regard to a mandatory retirement age. I think
the bill provides for mandatory retirement at age 60. As you know,
we have had a great deal of debate in Congress about eliminating
many of the mandatory retirement agencies, and we feel men and
women beyond age 60 are certainly highly capable of serving our
Nation.
What are your thoughts about the 60 retirement age?
Mr. KISSINGER. I think the Foreign Service is a very particular
position here in that respect, more than the civil service. Given the
necessity of serving abroad and given the special demands that are
made on the Foreign Service officers, experience shows with every
decade the percentage of those who cannot or will not serve abroad
increases. So, I would think that in view of the special nature of the
Service, mandatory retirement age of 60 is appropriate, though as I
am approaching it myself, I may develop second thoughts about it.
Mr. GiLMAN. In speaking of second thoughts-and I will divert
from the bill-there was a great deal of debate, as you may recall.,
about your shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. Some of us thought
it. was very effective and it probably brought us closer to peace.
As you look back now and compare shuttle diplomacy to other
methods of diplomacy, do you still advocate that as an effective vehicle
for a Secretary?
Mr. KISSINGER. It is very difficult to prescribe a particular method
of diplomacy because it depends so much on the circumstances and on
the personality. The shuttle diplomacy was initiated during a period
in which a critical domestic situation coincided with a very dramatic
foreign policy development.
That is to say, we had Watergate at home. We had a Middle East
crisis abroad, an oil embargo against all of the industrial democracies,
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the danger of massive economic recession, and it was important to have
a dramatic assertion that with all our travail, the United States could
remain purposeful and could discharge its responsibilities to the rest
of the world.
For that reason it was in that period important to have a demonstra-
tion of a rapid capacity to settle problems, but not all problems lend
themselves to rapid solution. I would say that as a general proposition,
high officials should not travel unless they are pretty sure of their out..
come because if they fail, it depreciates their prestige. So I would list
shuttle diplomacy as one of the methods that can be used. It is a rather
risky one because you are staking the prestige of your office and your
country, and if you fail at it, you have produced a major setback.
So, I would not recommend it as the only method. In the circum-
stances that I faced, I think still in retrospect it was the best way to
move things to a constructive solution.
Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We hope you will be back
again.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Pitchard.
Mr. PRITCIiARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I, too, am very pleased to see you back on the Hill,
although I know you come back with some regularity. I was very glad
to hear what you said about the structure of the organization of our
foreign policy.
It seems each time we have a new administration, the President
finds it more convenient, even though he generally agrees with the
overall policy, he finds it more convenient to go around the system be-
cause he wants to do things quicker.
Now, doesn't the same thing hold true when we get to the country
and the Ambassador there? I see we have eight programs. We have a
CIA; we have all these things operating in a country. Doesn't the
Ambassador have to call the shots if you are going to have an effec-
tive program in a country?
Mr. KISSINGER. I think that the Ambassador should be responsible
for all American activities in the country to which he is accredited ;
otherwise, he is in a very difficult position.
Mr. PRITCHARD. We do this, don't we?
Mr. KISSINGER. On the national level there is a propensity of Presi-
dents-you see it now in Presidents of such different personality-
to the physical proximity that seems to make a great deal of difference
and even the 5-minute car ride from the Department of State to the
White House seems to create a psychological barrier.
Second, I must say with all my affection for the Department of
State, it is capable of producing papers whose precision of thought
leaves something to be desired, so a President who wants to do some-
thing and sends it over and then asks for a recommendation, can find
himself frustrated by waffling papers.
On the other hand, if he bounces them back two or three times,
I think the only way to make a department responsible is to give it
responsibility. In the field I think there has been tremendous improve-
ment over the last 10 years in strengthening the responsibility of the,
Ambassador for the operations, and it depends partly on the energy
level of the Ambassador whether he really wants to exercise the au-
thority, and those Ambassadors who are abroad because they like the
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good life will then have a tendency not to exercise their responsibility
and to ride along with the bureaucratic tide.
It is an unwise way of proceeding. The best Ambassadors, good
Ambassadors, do not do that.
Mr. PRITCHARD. But each time you sort of go around it because you
feel the situation calls for going around it, why you just weaken that
situation,. and really the only way you do it is by hauling these people
up and either getting rid of them or making them toe the mark.
Mr. KlssINoER. Absolutely. I have to say in my experience I had
all the preconceptions about the waffling character of the State De-
partment. On the other hand, if you insist on performance, it is one of
the most impressive instruments that exist, and with strong leader-
ship, it is second to none in the world.
Mr. PRITCHARD. If the Secretary of State or the administration
relies on the State Department, and that message clearly goes down to
the organization, it seems to me it functions better when it knows
what it is doing will really be it.
Mr. KISSINGER. And if you don't, you have 10,000 disaffected, ir-
responsible people around who have to do something in the course
of the day, and they will then push foreign policy in a very erratic
direction, so you don't really have that much choice.
I want to stress, as you all know, that I honored this principle when
I was in the White House. There were special circumstances while I
was there, but I think institutionally the foreign policy has to be
conducted through the Secretary of State and through the Depart-
ment of State if it is to have coherence.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I would agree. We talk about the mandatory 60-
year old age limit. I know we used to have it in business. In most
cases it seemed to me it was an easier thing to do, instead of having to
face up and fire people.
It took some of the onus off unloading someone or moving them
into a less responsible spot. On the other hand, don't you think we
have to have some flexibility because, you know, there are people who
have experience and connections.
Mr. KISSINoER. As I understand the provisions of this bill, the
Secretary of State does have the authority to extend appointments
above age 60 if he considers this in the national interest. I think
that this protects those cases where individuals are essential.
Mr. PRITCHARD. I am getting closer to 60 so-
Mr. KISSINGER. There are a few people in this room who are going
the other way.
Mr. PRITCHARD. Finally, on protection for the individual employee.
if you give complete protection it seems to me that you lose quite a
bit in flexibility of management, and I think in the case of the State
Department it would seem to me-maybe you don't agree-that, be-
cause it is such an essential service and so important on the cutting
edge of this country's problems, that we have to allow the manage-
ment of the Department flexibility and maybe hold the protection
based on the ability of the people in there essentially.
Mr. KISSINGER. That would be my instinct. My instincts would be
to maintain administrative flexibility.
Mr. PRITCHARD. You know we are going to run counter to all
of the groups or the associations or whatever they have in every
one of these organizations.
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460
Mr. KIssINGER. But I think the Foreign Service is a very special
institution that requires a particular treatment because of the com-
plexity of its job, because of the hardship that is involved and in
some of the service and because of the crucial nature of the decisions
in which they are involved. I think general principles of retirement
that apply in other fields of endeavor should not be applied.
Mr. PRITCHARD. How about a little tradeoff on paying them a little
more money for a little less protection?
Mr. KISSINGER. I am in principle in favor of paying them more
money. There is, of course, the merit provisions in this bill, which I
think are very favorable. I think as a practical matter you, the mem-
bers of this committee, are in a better position to judge it than I.
As a practical matter, to take the Foreign Service out of this general
pay scale of the civil service, this would be a form of discrimination
that would be hard to put through. So, failing the ability to do this, I
am satisfied with the merit provisions of this act.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Gray.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, you state in your testimony, on page 3, "The Admin-
istration's proposal would consolidate and codify the personnel system
in all foreign service as also suggested in the 1977 interim report. The
present multiple array of personnel categories and subcategories deters
good management and makes individual inequities hard to avoid."
In your opinion, how does a new act provide for the free flow and
better utilization of women and minorities in the Foreign Service, and
what safeguards do you see there, against the continuation of a sort of
closed service, as in the past?
Mr. KISSINGER. What this comment refers to is the various categories
that have grown up either by administrative practice or by law; it
does not refer to whatever categories may exist in the minds of those
who are administering the general provisions.
By establishing one single, homogenous Foreign Service by abolish-
ing various different categories, it makes it possible to administer the
personnel practices in a uniform manner.
I would have thought that the intent of the Congress and the con.
sensus, our national consensus, has been that greater attention should be
paid to minorities, to women, and generally to groups that have here-
tofore been disadvantaged, it would be reflected in the administration's
procedures; it would be also reflected in the administration of the
promotion system. But I must say that this statement was not ad-
dressed to that question that you have raised.
Mr. GRAY. Do you see anything in the act that will try to correct
those inequities of the past?
Mr. KISSINGER. I cannot immediately identify it, but I know the peo-
ple who are administering this act in this administration. I would like
to think also in the previous administration, but certainly the people
who would be administering this act, seem to me to be very conscious
of these inequities; and I would not object to some congressional ex-
pression that called particular attention to this and established it as
a criteria to which one should pay attention in admission and in
promotion.
Mr. GRAY. You mean, should not the administration procedures, or
do those administration procedures, from your point of view at this
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time, or as proposed in the act, provide those particular groups, women,
minorities, who have not been in the Foreign Service, have that oppor-
tunity to get into the Foreign Service? Or are you saying perhaps
there needs to be something stronger in terms of a statement in the
Foreign Service Act?
Mr. KISSINGER. When I was Secretary, the Deputy Under Secretary
for Management, Larry Eagleburger, started procedures which
brought about a dramatic increase both in applications and in admis-
sions into the Foreign Service. We took special care both with respect
to women and with respect to minorities, to make sure the promotion
system operated, keeping in mind past inequities.
I have the impression that these efforts, which were begun when I
was Secretary, have been strengthened in the present administration,
but I think so far this has been a matter of administrative decision.
I am told that affirmative action and equal opportunity are now
merit principles to which attention is paid, and that this act would
strengthen the already-existing provisions in favor of the broadest
representation.
Mr. GRAY. My concern is that I really wanted to get to your feeling
about whether or not some strong statement or language ought to be
in the act itself, rather than depending on the good wishes of the Ad-
ministrator, whoever the Administrator might be, or the Secretary at
that moment.
Mr. KISSINGER. Again, I have not thought about this problem, but
offhand I would think a strong statement in the act, a statement of
purpose, would seem to me to be very appropriate.
[Mr. Kissinger's additional comments follow:]
As I understand it, existing equal employment provisions of law such as those
in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1979 and in the Civil Rights statutes apply
to the Department of State and the Foreign Service as well as to the Civil
Service. The proposed bill would make no change in that situation, but incorpo-
rates equal opportunity goals in section 101(b) (2) and in the repeated references
to "merit principles" of the 1979 Act elsewhere in the bill. Under the circum-
stances, no additional language on this subject seems necessary. However, if
the Congress should want to expand further on the language now in the pro-
posal which refers to that legislation to give it added emphasis, I certainly
would support it.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCEI.I.. Mr. Secretary, we have been talking about some myths
that are hard to put to rest. One is the whole problem of elitism and
perceptions concerning elite groups in our society, whether that elitism
is achieved validly through specialized training and rigorous require-
ments or is perceived to exist for no good reason.
That has happened in the State Department with the charge that
the Foreign Service is nothing but a "bunch of pin-striped cookie
pushers" who are graduated from Harvard and Yale. But it seems to
me that on the level of discussion that you just had with Mr. Gray, it
is quite clear that for some time the Department has been responding
to the necessity for broader representation of American society in
the Foreign Service. While one could criticize the State Department
and the Foreign Service-as we can criticize any agency or group in
government-I don't believe any thinking person could question the
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caliber and dedication of the Foreign Service. It has a way to go,
however, before it truly reflects the best in American society, regard
less of race, creed, color, sex, national origin-or school.
Mr. KISSIN(3ER. You have to remember that most of the Foreign
Service believes that the incumbent Secretary of State could never
have made it into the Foreign Service if he had not been appointed
by the President to his office.
Mr. FABCELL. I might add, as an example of perspective, that there
are a lot of myths surrounding 'Congressmen, but I don't want to get
into that right now.
Mr. KISSINaER. I don't mean this Secretary of State, incidentally.
They think that about every Secretary of State.
Mr. FABCELL. The other myth that has surrounded the Department
and refuses to die has been this question that it is just loaded with dead-
wood. We hear that about every department of Government and the
Congress, but it has seemed to stick with particular regularity to the
Department of State.
Now, you addressed the whole question of up and out, the importance
of admissions, and it seems to me that a genuine effort has been made
to deal with that problem.
Mr. KIssINOER. I think a genuine effort has been made, Mr. Chair-
man. I think the popular image is substantially incorrect. Of course,
it applies to a few individuals and they will be the ones that stick in
the people's minds.
I found that the tougher the crisis was, the better the Foreign Serv-
ice responded. I have not seen any statistical breakdown of its com-
position. I would be surprised if the old image of the Ivy League pre-
dominance is still correct, but a systematic effort has been made to
broaden its base to make it more representative and, after all, the pri-
mary incentive to be in the Foreign Service is in the word, "Service."
Most of the people could earn more money elsewhere, and they do it
because they believe in their country and they want to serve their coun-
try, and that is their reward and that is why they work long hours with
great dedication, and I really think the public image is substantially
incorrect.
Any bureaucracy develops procedures which can be maddening but
they can be overcome and they do not reflect the quality of the
personnel.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Secretary, I personally agree with you. I have been
in Congress 25 years and I have had an opportunity to observe the
State Department at very close range from the vantage point of my
congressional responsibilities. My own conclusion is that, by and large,
the Foreign Service is composed of a tremendous number of dedicated
people with the highest of motivations and a genuine desire to serve
our country. It is unfortunate that the few cases that lend credence to
the myths refuse to be forgotten.
There is another myth I've heard, to the effect that the average
American businessman just cannot get any help from American em-
bassies anywhere in the world and that, if he really wants to get the
Myths like this have given rise to responses such as the current move
to augment the powers of the Special Trade Representative or move
kind of pragmatic help that he ought to have, he needs to go to the
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trade policy to Commerce or a combination of both so that East-West
trade and commodities issues which have a tremendous impact on our
foreign policy would no longer be the responsibility of State.
A few years ago, similar action was taken to set up agricultural
attaches operating out of the Agricultural Department, apart from the
State Department. What is your comment on all of this?
Mr. KISSINGER. I have always been opposed to this. First, on the gen-
eral comment that embassies don't give adequate assistance to commer-
cial interests, my experience has been that the fault is much more fre-
quently on the side of the business community. They generally do not
come to the Government until they are in such a desperate situation
and they are already in so much trouble that it is almost impossible to
do anything for them.
Contrary to other countries, where there is some sort of a commercial
strategy, our people do not come to the Government at a time when you
can do something and they come to the Government when they are in
desperate straits and then they expect some miracle at the last moment.
That was my experience with respect to our business community and
the Secretary of State.
There is no reason in the world why ambassadors of the United
States cannot and should not and do not represent our economic inter-
ests, but it is very wrong to create special constituencies which then
can go back to different departments with narrow interests, not related
to our present foreign policy and then in the Congress to special com-
mittees that again are not primarily responsible for our foreign policy
in terms of our foreign representation abroad.
I opposed it with respect to commerce attaches. I think it is unwise
with respect to agricultural attaches, and I would say there what I said
about the Secretary of State. If our ambassador cannot represent our
economic interest, it was a poor appointment, because economics is such
a vital factor of our relationship to the rest of the world today.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me discuss one more problem and then I will con-
clude. One of the more troublesome problems has been one that in-
volves the American public generally and the problem of consular
services. People who are in trouble expect the Marines to be called
out or some other dramatic response when they have a particular per-
sonal problem in a foreign country, regardless whether the State
Department has the authority or the resources to handle the problem.
As a result, the suggestion has at times been made to separate the
consular service from the Department, or that the training of con-
sular officers should be changed so that they are not forced to compete
with other Foreign Service officers, but develop skills similar to social
workers and follow a different career development pattern.
The Department has been faced with this problem for some time.
I think it is a matter of rising expectations from a larger and more
diverse traveling American public and declining or static resources in
the Department, which makes it difficult or impossible for our Foreign
Service officers abroad to carry out their mission, thereby discrediting
the Department of State generally in carrying out its foreign mission.
Mr. KISSINGER. There are a number of problems. First, there are so
many Americans traveling abroad right now and so relatively few
consular offices in relation to the numbers of Americans abroad that,
as most parts of the Foreign Service, they are overworked.
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Second, usually the case arises when there is some legal or tech-
nical obstacle and it depends then very much on the legislation of the
country which they are in. Whatever influence an American represent-
ative has abroad depends on the foreign policy relationship we have
with that country and on the price that that country is willing to pay
for generally good relations with the United States.
Therefore, the impact of the consular office depends importantly on
the foreign policy impact of the United States overall, and to sep-
arate the consular offices from that would be to give them an assign-
ment that is almost impossible to carry out.
Mr. FASCELL. The 'Congress has not helped due to budgetary con-
straints, we have been very, very tight about the budget in terms of
real growth, and so we bear part of the responsibility to the inability
of the Department to respond to these needs.
But one of the major purposes of this legislation is to improve the
morale of consular officers, though we can't accomplish this legisla-
tively. The idea is that, through proper management-I agree with
you that you have to rely on the Secretary of State-people in the
consular service would be given a greater opportunity for career
development in the Foreign Service. But this is essentially a function
of management.
Mr. KISSINGER. That would be my view.
Mr. FnsCELL. Dr. Kissinger, thank you very much.
Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Secretary, as the co-Chair, I would like to just
make one plea. I want to lobby you a bit and hope we can engage you
in a little shuttle diplomacy, and that is on behalf of the spouses in
the Foreign Service. We have a chance here to do something about
their condition, and we have some people that I think you have heard
of down in OMB who are not quite agreeing with the State Depart-
ment position on this.
All I hope is that you look at the- different arguments that have
been made, and I hope we can persuade you because you are always
very eloquent, and I think it would be nice to have you on our side.
I don't think there is anything more pressing as the condition of
many of the spouses in the Foreign Service. As you know, the divorce
rate, I think, is higher because of conditions they have been subjected
to. We have degraded spouses; we have made them do all sorts of
things. We have moved them all over the world. They could never
have a pension in their own name unless they found a magic pension
that they could invest in wherever they are stationed. And if they are
divorced, we tell them, "You had lots of honor," which is hard to eat
and hard to wear, and it doesn't keep you warm.
As you know, under community-property States and under the pen-
sion programs in most foreign services in almost every other country
in the free world, there is a vesting of a certain part of someone's pen-
sion after so many years of marriage that is automatic. We are trying
to get that in rather than forcing everyone to go to court and honor it.
It is causing a little difficulty with OMB.
I would be more than happy to try to persuade you and put you
hack to work shuttling back and forth down there and see if you can
help us in this battle as we deal with this bill.
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Mr. KISSINGER. Let me look at this and I will write you a letter
with my views. I have not had a chance to look into this.
[Mr. Kissinger's additional comments follow:]
I share the Committee's view that the Foreign Service must accommodate the
rights and concerns of family members. The bill would strengthen the Depart-
ment's ongoing program in areas of employment and training opportunities for
family members. I support retention and strengthening of these provisions.
You asked especially about divorced spouses. I support the concept of the
existing law, retained in this bill, that the courts review the circumstances of
each case and establish the share of an officer's annuity to be paid to a former
spouse. However, I would like to see the Committee expand the bill to provide
survivor annuities for former spouses who have served abroad with members
of the Foreign Service for minimum prescribed periods.
Mr. FASCELL. Dr. Kissinger, thank you very much.
We will continue now with the review of the bill, word by word,
line by line, page by page, orchestrated by Secretary Read with basso
prof undo accompaniment by Harry Barnes and with further accom-
paniment by Mr. James Michel, who will tell us whether we are pick-
ing up the proper beat on this score.
Mr. Secretary, we were at page 105. We are about to start on chap-
ter 10. This is a new section, as I recall it, with an effort to codify
labor-management relations. Do you want to pick it up from there?
Mr. READ.1 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We had made some preliminary remarks last time as you recall and
we will go right into section by section unless you would prefer
otherwise.
Mr. FASCELL. Go right ahead.
Mr. MICHEL.2 Mr. Chairman, if it is convenient for the members
of the committees we could proceed with the four column print, rather
than the three column print, which we had prepared for this chap-
ter alone.
Mr. FASCELL. So chapter 10 is in a separate four-column print and
we are now at page 1. Is everybody with us?
Mr. MICHEL. We kept the numbering corresponding to the other
print for cross-reference.
Mr. FASCELL. Page 1 of the second print, chapter 10.
Mr. MICHEL. The third column in this document sets out the rel-
evant provisions of the Civil Service Reform Act and the labor-
management relations system provided by law for the civil service
for purposes of comparison.
Mr. FASCELL. Which column?
Mr. MICHEL. Third column. We have in the left column Executive
Order 11636, the present basis for the Foreign Service, the second
column is the bill; the third column is the civil service law; and the
fourth column is a sectional analysis of the bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you. Go ahead.
Mr. MICHEL. We begin with section 1001, the statement of findings
and purpose. This section is drawn from the Civil Service Reform Act
and distinguished only by the addition of a paragraph appearing on
i Hon. Ben H. Read, Under Secretary for Management, Department of State.
James Michel, Deputy Legal Adviser, Department of State.
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466
page 106, paragraph 3, which states that the unique conditions of
Foreign Service employment require a distinct framework for labor-
management. That paragraph is drawn from the existing Executive
order. It recognizes the history of Foreign Service labor relations out-
side the Civil Service System and the express exemption of the For-
eign Service from civil service law.
Mr. FASCELL. Paragraphs 1 and 2 come out of the Civil Service
Act, paragraph 3 comes out of Executive orders and there are no
substantive changes as far as the findings made by Congress on the
matters of policy.
Mr. MICHEL. That is correct.
Mr. FAscELL. Section 1002.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1002 contains the definitions used uniquely in
this chapter of the bill. There are some terms used in this chapter and
elsewhere in the bill which are governed by the definitions at the
beginning in chapter 1, but there are some special terms relating to
labor-management that we have defined specially for this chapter.
These are first, the term "Board" which is used as shorthand for the
Foreign Service Labor Relations Board.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Can I ask a question right there. May I ask why
we need a separate board? Why can't we use FLRA?
Mr. MICHEL. We can address that as we go through definitions or
we can address that when we get to the substantive provisions. Would
you like to deal with that right now?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. All I am saving is I would define board as FLRA.
Mr. MICHEL. We have been discussing for many weeks the charac-
teristics of the Foreign Service and the distinguishing features of the
Foreign Service which make it different from the civil service. The
Foreign Service is governed by a separate body of personnel law and
has been since the 19th century.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I agree with that. Where my problem comes is I
still believe the FLRA is able to administer two laws instead of creat-
ing two boards.
Mr. MICHEL. If I may address that. The pattern in labor-man-
agement has been that where you are dealing with different systems
you generally do not give an administrative body the additional re-
sponsibility for dealing with additional systems. We have the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board in the private sector. Why shouldn't
the National Labor Relations Board deal with Federal employees?
The answer is because there are special conditions for the civil serv-
ice that warranted the establishment of a Federal Labor Relations
Authority. There are also special terms of employment in the trans-
portation industry, and because of this there is a National Mediation
Board that deals with railroads and airlines.
We think that the special conditions in the Foreign Service neces-
sitate afamiliarity with the facts of foreign service life that will per-
mit the organization administering the labor-management program
to deal expeditiously and fairly and correctly with the issues that are
presented to it. We have 8 years of experience in dealing with the labor
management system apart from the civil service and it has worked.
We get pretty fast turnaround from the existing machinery. We
would expect that to continue under the system that we have proposed
in this bill.
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We have tried to maintain compatibility and if you read the two
provisions side by side you will see there is a similarity of functions.
We don't think identity of personnel, where you have a body that is
full-time dealing 99 percent of the time with the Civil Service and 1
percent of the time with the Foreign Service, is going to provide the
same quality of administration that we will get with a separate For-
ei Service Labor Relations Board.
Tmight add one other point on this and that is that we have some
experience with a grievance board for the Foreign Service which was
created by the Congress and serves as the Foreign Service Grievance
Board, not a governmentwide grievance board. We have been able to
attract and retain outstanding experts in the field of labor relations,
arbitrators who have been willing to serve on that Board and make
it the premier grievance system in the Federal service.
We think this same quality can be achieved through the system we
have proposed for the Foreign Service Labor Relations Board. and
that it will simply be a better system than it would be if we relied on
a body which is concerned 99 percent of the time with a whole dif-
ferent set of personnel laws. That body would have the civil service
orientation that rank is in the position, not in the person, that an
individual has a relationship to the position to which assigned rather
than to a system where he or she is subject to assignment throughout
the world. It would not be familiar with all the other special character-
istics we have been discussing in the first 110 pages of this bill.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. But you have different limits on the Foreign Serv-
ice Labor Board. In other words, the FLRA has broader authority I
think. I understand why you need a different group in the private
sector versus public sector but I don't think the public sector is that
different. I guess we are not going to agree on that. I just wanted to
flag that and tell you I think we will have problems with that. I can
list a whole different group of reasons why I don't think that is the
way to go. I am not sure how independent it is being in-house.
Mr. MicHEL. It is not in-house and is independent and we do think
the Foreign Service is, as Dr. Kissinger said earlier today a special
institution.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Everybody thinks they are a special institution but
there is also some reason for having uniformity. We have just gone
through extensive hearings in the Civil Service Committee trying to
set up things to make sure we don't have overlaps and conflict of inter-
est. I don't see the same kind of protection and the same scope of au-
thority here. Let me flag it and say I think we may have a problem and
we will get with it later I guess.
Mr. LEACH. Will the gentleman yield? Maybe there is some model in
the GAO legislation and you can tie the two together.
Mr. FASCELL. Go ahead.
Mr. MicHEL. The other definitions are similar to the Civil Service
Reform Act. There are a couple of differences of language which I
miht point out. Paragraph 3, "collective bargaining agreement," re-
fers" to a signed agreement and refers to the fact that it may be of a
comprehensive and long term nature. Now those are unnecessary things
to say in the civil service context where you have a pattern of bar-
gaining which involves signed agreements of a comprehensive and
long-term nature. That has not been the pattern of labor-management
negotiations in the Foreign Service.
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There have been agreements reached through clearances of regula-
tions in advance and a variety of other mechanisms and so we are put-
ting in language that emphasizes somewhat greater compatibility with
the civil service.
Conditions of employment is defined as including practices, policy
matters within the discretion of the Secretary of State. The substance
is the same for the civil service. We made it explicit in the bill for the
Foreign Service. r
There are excluded from the definition of conditions of employment
matters relating to governmentwide or multiagency responsibilities
of the Secretary of State affecting agencies outside the foreign affairs
community. This makes explicit what title VII of the Civil Service
Reform Act implies. You cannot bargain with an agency about things
that exceed agency jurisdiction and go to governmentwide responsibili-
ties of a particular head of an agency.
There is a difference in that we have national consultation rights
under the Civil Service Reform Act for unions representing significant
segments of the Federal service on subjects which are governmentwide
responsibilities of particular agencies.
In our case the overseas standardized regulations on allowances and
differentials would be a subject on which there might be an obligation
to grant national consultation rights. It would not be a subject of col-
lective bargaining because it is a governmentwide responsibility of the
Secretary of State. We provide similarly for consultation on these
kinds of subjects for the Foreign Service unions.
We have a difference in the definition of confidential employee in
that we apply the definition of confidential employee to manage-
ment officials generally, except for those who are serving in a clerical
capacity outside the personnel area. This reflects the difference in
the scope of the bargaining unit.
We exclude management officials and confidential employees from
the bargaining unit. The Civil Service excludes all employees down
through the rank of supervisor from the bargaining unit. We can
address that in the definition of employee perhaps.
The employee definition, paragraph 7 excludes as you will note,
a confidential employee, a management official and a consular agent.
You don't find reference to a consular agent in the Civil Service
Reform Act because they don't have consular agents in the civil
service.
We do not exempt supervisors because that would take about half
the Foreign Service out of the bargaining unit. This is a considerably
higher percentage than are excluded in the civil service. It simply
is a fact that we have a Foreign Service population widely dispersed
around the globe, most of them serving in small and medium sized
posts, and they have responsibilities for effectively recommending
matters which would cause them to be supervisors in the Civil Service
definitions to a much greater extent than is true of the Civil Service
work force.
Even Foreign Service officers who supervise foreign national em-
ployees would be excluded from the bargaining unit as we understand
the Civil Service definition and some decisions of the former Federal
Labor Relations Council on this subject.
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The definition of exclusive representative, paragraph 8, is the
same except we don't deal with the presently recognized exclusive rep-
resentative in this chapter. There is a grandfathering provision in
the Civil Service Reform Act. We simply put that into title II of
the bill because it did not seem appropriate in a codification which
should be a permanent body of law.
The substantive effect is the same.
Our definition of labor organization is essentially the same as the
Civil Service. We insert the adjective "primary," in our bill saying
that a labor organization is an organization composed of employees
which has a primary purpose of dealing with the Department on
griveances and conditions of employment. All this does is to provide
some protection against complaints if there is a meeting between
management and a group.
For example, we have a number of groups of minority employees
who have particular concerns that they wish to express. Their pri-
mary purpose is not to deal with management as a labor organiza-
tion and we think it is reasonable to meet with those groups, with the
exclusive representative given the right to be present at the meeting.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The primary purpose would not be dealing with
the Department of State. It would be a labor organization that was
broader than just representing the Department of State? For example,
AFG, how would they fall into that definition.?
Mr. MICHEL. That is "a" primary purpose, not "the" primary
purpose.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. You would still see them as meeting this test?
Mr. MicHEL. By all means. It is the quality of the organization
rather than what agency they deal with that we are talking about
here. What is the nature of the organization.
Management official is a term which is defined differently in this bill
from the definition in the Civil Service Reform Act. A management of-
ficial under the civil service law is an individual who among other
things has duties and responsibilities which authorize that individual
to influence the policy of the agency. Now I think most Foreign Service
officers believe that they have a duty and a responsibility to seek to
influence the policy of the Department of State. That seems unneces-
sarily vague language in the context of the Foreign Service. We have
a more specific definition of a management official drawn from the ex-
isting Executive order, under which we have operated for the past 8
years, and that bears a relationship to chapter 2 of this bill which
identifies the management of the Department of Foreign Service.
We define as "management officials" chiefs of mission, assistant sec-
retaries, persons serving in comparable positions and their deputies as
well as Foreign Service inspectors and personnel officials.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me take you back if you are finished with that.
Do you want to explain to me what the difference is between an or-
ganization which has as a purpose dealing with an agency and an
organization which has a primary purpose dealing with the agency?
Mr. MICHEL. The only difference that we had in mind here is
that
Mr. FASCELL. We are talking about an employee organization. It is
going to deal at arm's length with an agency for purposes of grievances
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and conditions of employment but with a, whole list of exceptions. In
both cases that is the purpose. What difference does it make if it is a
purpose or the primary purpose?
Mr. MICHEL. The difference is we do not want to consider a group
of minority employees who want to talk to the Secretary of State
about the conditions of minority employees in the State Department to
be a labor organization so that we will be subject to an unfair labor
practice for talking to them or listening to them.
Mr. FASCELL. But if such a group of people got together and de-
cided they wanted to try to represent the employees, they still have
that right.
Mr. MICHEL. But then they would be a labor organization and then
they would come under the rules.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that, but isn't one of the purposes of
defining a labor organization that a labor organization would have to
have the authority to represent the employees, not the purpose?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, you are speaking of authority and capacity, and
that could be a way to define it.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't know.
Mr. MICHEL. We stuck with purpose because that is what we had in
the Executive order and that is what we have in the Civil Service
Reform Act.
'Mr. FASCELL. I am still not clear on the distinction. I don't see it
frankly because the definition does not take care of the problem you
raised, I don't believe. If a group of people got together, whether they
called themselves a labor organization or not, and they stated that their
purpose was primarily to deal with the agency on matters of griev-
ances and conditions of employment, and insisted on seeing the Secre-
tary of State concerning what they conceive to be grievances dealing
with minorities, then what status or authority would they have?
Mr. MICHEL. We would have to say we deal with the exclusive repre-
sentative of those employees.
Mr. FASCELL. Then it does not seem to me the definition of purpose
does anything. What determines the relationship of the labor organi-
zation to management is whether or not it represents the employees.
Mr. MICHEL. But there are organizations which, do not purport to
represent employees.
Mr. FASCELL. Then they shouldn't come within the provisions of this
act, period.
Mr. MICHEL. That is what the word "primary purposes" does, keep
them out of the act.
Mr. FASCELL. I would say it a lot more explicitly than that because
I don't think saying "primary purpose" does it myself, unless you
think that covering it under the definition of exclusive representation
gives you that coverage. If that is what you are saying, then I am going
to respect your legal opinion.
Mr. MICHEL. We are saying there are organizations which do not
have a primary purpose of representing employees, and those organi-
zations have members and those members sometimes want to talk to
the Secretary of State.
Mr. FASCELL. That is different.
Mr. MICHEL. That is all that is about.
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Mr. FASCELL. That is different. If I decide tomorrow that I want
to start an organization and I call it a labor organization and I put in
my charter that the primary purpose is grievances and conditions of
employment, and then I don't have the authority to represent all of
the employees, but only the employees in that group, you could have
99 labor organizations.
Mr. MICHEL. Then you have to petition for exclusive representation,
go through election.
Mr. FASCELL. Of all employees.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. I just wanted to be sure.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1003 preserves two exceptions from the gen-
eral application of this chapter. The first is the authority of the Presi-
dent to exempt a subdivision of the Department that is primarily an
intelligence, investigative, security operation. That is parallel to what
is in the Civil Service Reform Act. The second is the authority of
the Secretary of State to suspend temporarily any provision of the
chapter with respect to a post abroad or an office in the United States
in an emergency.
Mr. FASCELL. What happens to all this other language on page 110A
in the Civil Service Act?
Mr. MICHEL. Those are some definitions we have not picked up.
That is a grievance. We deal with grievances in a separate chapter as
far as individuals are concerned, because we retained the present statu-
tory grievance system.
Mr. FASCELL. Their particular point is not applicable. They have
either been left out or treated in some other section?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. Would you simply identify the grievances you al-
ready covered?
Mr. MICHEL. Grievances are dealt with in chapter 11 and in section
1024 of this bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Subparagraph 10 on page 110A is what?
Mr. MICHEL. The definition of supervisor simply is not used in our
system.
Mr. FASCELL. How about 15?
Mr. MICHEL. We do not have a special category of professional em-
ployees to be treated differently from nonprofessional. "United States"
is defined elsewhere in the bill.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 1004?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1004 is a statement of employee rights which
is substantively identical to section 7102 in the Civil Service Reform
Act and is also compatible with the Executive order under which we
now operate.
There are editorial changes but no changes of substance.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 1005?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1005, on management rights, is organized
somewhat differently from the Civil Service Act, basically on differ-
nces in the two personnel systems.
The Civil Service Act in paragraph (2) (A) has a reference to re-
duction in grade or pay. We don't have that procedure in the Foreign
Service.
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Paragraph (C) in the Civil Service Reform Act refers to filling
positions from among properly ranked and certified candidates for
promotion. We don't fill positions by promotion ; we fill positions
by assignment, and promotion is a separate process in the Foreign
Service, so we refer to promotion in a different paragraph.
There is one unique management ri ht that we have referred to in
the bill, and that is in paragraph a(.o of section 1005. Under the
Civil Service Act, if management decides there is a need for uniform
personnel policies or practices, management has to demonstrate that
right to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. That can be litigated
by the union, and if the Federal Labor Relations Authority upholds
management's contention that there is a compelling need for uniform-
ity, then there is no bargaining; management. issues the regulations.
What we have done is to provide that management of the foreign
affairs agencies may agree on the need for uniformity. For example,
they might agree they need uniform separation for cause procedures
for Foreign Service officers and Foreign Service information officers in
ICA. As a consequence of that decision by management, then there will
be bargaining on a joint basis and ICA's employee representative and
State's employee representative will sit down with management of the
two agencies and they will hammer out a joint regulation that will
preserve compatibility between the two agencies.
We think that gives the employees, in a way j a better deal than in
the civil service, and it preserves in a better way the objective of com-
patibility among the foreign affairs agencies using the Foreign Service
system.
There are no other significant differences in management rights
between civil service and Foreign Service legislation.
Mr. FASCELL. Excuse me.
Mr. MICHEL. That is the only significant difference in the manage-
ment rights section.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's go to the next one.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1011 establishes the Foreign Service Labor
Relations Board. We have addressed already the reason why we believe
that a separate Board is necessary for the Foreign 'Service.
The Board that we would establish would be chaired by the Chair-
man of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. This would assure a
compatibility with what is going on in the civil service. The same per-
son who is looking at civil service is lookng at the Foreign Service and
knows what precedents there are on the civil service side. The two
systems are not operating completely separately.
But we would have two members appointed by the Secretary from
nominees appointed by the foreign affairs agencies, with the concur-
rence of the exclusive representative of employees in each agency.
Mr. FASCELL. It seems to me that what you have done, in effect, is to
create a separate panel for the management of two systems under the
same authority. With special rules laid down for the separate panel,
because of the special conditions of employment.
I don't find that incompatible with the concept of a single system.
Maybe it would have been better to write all this in the other law and
set up a separate panel under the same head, with all the same provi-
sions, but that occasion did not arise; the matter wasn't before us at
that time. Perhaps this is a way of dealing with this. That does not
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seem inconsistent with the objection that Mrs. Schroeder has, the con-
cept of another board, another agency, and another set of rules.
Mr. MICHEL. It could be looked at that way.
Mr. FASCELL. I notice a lot of courts that operate that way and very
seldom ever get to the parent organization. It is possible. I don't say
that is ideal or that that, would be satisfactory; I say it is a possible
concept.
Mr. MicmEL. However it is characterized, we think that the inter-
relationship between the Federal Labor Relations Authority and the
Board
Mr. FASCELL. It boils down to a question of semantics. I would be
willing to do whatever it takes in terms of semantics, even in terms of
legislation, to do whatever we have to do.
I would not object too much to that. I would like you to think about
that possibility. Anyway, go ahead.
Mr. MICHEL. We provide that the chairperson would be, as I said,
Chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, who would serve
ex officio, so we don't prescribe a term of office for the Chair. We pro-
vide a 3-year term for the other members. There is less detail; the only
significant feature, I think, is that we don't provide expressly for a
General Counsel to be appointed by the President, with the specific
responsibility of investigating charges of unfair labor practices. We
instead provide more generally in paragraph (f) on page 114 of the
print that within the limits of appropriated funds, the Board may
appoint and fix the compensation of employees.
There is a provision later on giving the Board an independent right
to have its counsel represent the Board in court, and so it does contem-
plate that there would be independent legal staff for the Board. .
We don't create a special statutory office for that.
Section 1012.
Ms. SCHLUNDT. Mr. Michel, as I understand it, all administrative
support for the FSLRB comes from the Department. Why not make it
independent, allow it to hire its own staff? Is there any rationale for
this?
Mr. MICHEL. That is provided for in the bill. The Board has the au-
thority to appoint and fix the compensation of its employees as the
Board considers necessary to carry out its functions. That is the last
sentence in paragraph (f).
Alternatively, the Board may obtain facilities, services and supplies
through the general administrative service of the Department of State.
They don't have to go out and rent an office if we have a vacant office
in the building.
Mr. FASCELL. Where are you reading?
Mr. MICHEL. Paragraph (f) at the bottom of page 114.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 1012.
Mr. MICHEL. The functions of the Board are basically similar to
those of the Federal Labor Relations Authority under the Civil Ser-
vice Act. The organizational structure of this section is slightly differ-
ent, but the substance of it is the same. We don't include all of the pro-
visions that are in the civil service law which contemplate regional
offices and so on, because we don't have that big a system. We don't
provide that there will be an official seal. Apart from these details, the
functions are essentially the same.
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Mr. FASCELL. Section 1013.
Mr. Mier.. Section 1013 provides for judicial review and enforce-
ment of the Board's actions on essentially the same basis as there is pro-
vision for judicial review in the Civil Service Reform Act.
We provide for appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia simply because that is where this Board will be; the Civil
Service Act contemplates cases being brought in other circuits, because
you will have regional offices of the Board, and you will have Govern-
ment installations spread around the United States where you will
have separate units, and we don't have that.
The exclusions from judicial review in the Civil Service Reform
Act involve the institutional grievances. We have similarly excluded
those grievance awards from judicial review when it is a grievance of
the union.
Also, in the civil service law, unit determinations are not subject to
judicial review. We have only one unit, so we don't have any need for
that exception.
Section 1014 establishes an additional administrative body, the
Foreign Service Impasse Disputes Panel. This is a continuation of
an administrative authority that was created under Executive Order
11636, known simply as the Disputes Panel. The function of this panel
is to attempt to mediate impasses that occur in the course of negotia-
tions and, if mediation efforts fail, to conduct hearings and to impose
solutions on the parties who are unable to agree.
Our experience with this body has been good; it includes in its
membership two members of the Foreign Service, and these members
may not be management officials or confidential employees, and they
may not be labor organization officials. So they will have an expertise
that is useful in achieving a knowledgeable and quick resolution of
these disputes that may arise in negotiation.
I might add that since the Disputes Panel was created by Execu-
tive order, it has handled only 23 cases, all but four of these in the first
2 years while we were getting used to collective bargaining in the
Foreign Service.
In 1978 there were no disputes that required the assistance of the
panel, and in 1979 there was one.
Mr. FASCELL. In other words, it was clear there that the dynamics
of the bargaining process was taken over satisfactorily?
Mr. MICHEL. We all have a better idea of what we have to bargain
about and what it takes to reach agreement. This was brandnew to
the Department of State and the Foreign Service in 1971 and 1972
when this system was being set up and there were some bumps getting
started, but that is right, the dynamics now are to resolve these things
at the negotiating table, not through litigation.
We provide something that is not in the Civil Service Reform Act
with respect to the conclusions of the Disputes Panel, and that is, the
Secretary of State may override a finding of the Panel if he concludes
that the finding is contrary to the best interests of the Service. This
means that the onus is on the Secretary. The Disputes Panel's finding
is final unless the Secretary takes action to say "no."
We think this is a warranted departure because of, one, the broad
scope of bargaining with the worldwide unit. We have a broad range
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of collective bargaining. Also, it is warranted because the Department
operates under distinct and disciplined conditions that we think make
it inappropriate for a party to impose with finality a condition of
employment without the agreement of the Secretary.
Mr. FASCELL. That raises some questions in my mind : one is the
burden of action; two, time required; three, the assertiveness of ad-
ministrative rights, final determination. Tell me about. those three
things under that statement.
Mr. MICHEL. The burden of action is on the Secretary of State to
upset an otherwise final decision of the Panel.
Mr. FASCELL. Is it final?
Mr. MICHEL. I think you pointed out there ought to be a time limit.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't know; it certainly seems to me you can't close
the door unless there is a finality in the administrative process.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes; well, without a time limit, I guess you don't
know whether it is final or not.
Mr. FASCELL. As long as you have that clause in there?
Mr. MICHEL. We need a time limit.
Mr. FASCELL. Why don't you think about that and come back to
us?
Mr. FEINSTEIN. Mr. Michel, would you please explain what the
term "contrary to the best interests of the Service means"?
Mr. MICHEL. That is obviously a subjective term. You can't define
the "best interests of the Service" in a paragraph and plug it into this
law; it means the judgment of the Secretary of State as to whether
the proposal that is directed by the Panel, a proposal to which the
parties have not agreed, is going to be harmful to the Foreign Service
of the United States.
Now, I just don't know how to put any words or adjectives around
that that would limit that discretion any in any effective way.
It seems to me that the Secretary of State is responsible to the
members of the Foreign Service for acting responsibly. It seems to
me it is a pretty heavy burden to participate in the process, and that
the Secretary is not going to invoke that authority lightly.
We have had no disputes panel recommendation overruled in over
8 years of collective barganing history in the Foreign Service. We
think, as a matter of principle, that is an appropriate distinction
between the Civil Service and the Foreign Service, to retain that
right for the Secretary of State.
Mr. FASCELL. Following up on what Mr. Feinstein just pointed out,
I think it is a good question. You are saying the Secretary has this
authority now under present law?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. And that is by Executive order?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. And this language codifies that present authority?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. You had no case on the matter?
Mr. MICHEL. No; we had 23 cases in 8 years, and none has been
overruled.
Mr. FASCELL. How do the people get onto this Impasse Panel?
Mr. MICI-IEL. The Panel is appointed by the Chairman of the For-
eign Service Labor Relations Board.
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Mr. FASCELL. The chairperson is the Chairman of the -
Mr. MICHEL. The Federal Labor Relations Authority, and
Mr. FASCELL. There is a mandatory requirement for Foreign Serv-
ice representation.
Mr. MICHEL. Two Foreign Service, one Department of Labor, one
Federal Service Impasse Panel, and one public member who is not in
the Government.
Mr. FASCELL. So, in addition to the Secretary having considered the
question of overturning the panel decision, he would have to take on
the Chairman of the Foreign Service Labor Relations Board who ap-
pointed him in the first place?
Mr. MICHEL. Excuse me?
Mr. FASCELL. The Secretary would not only have to overrule the
Panel, but he would also have to take on the authority that appointed
him in the first instance?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. If it was a case of irresponsible or arbitrary action of
the Secretary, the matter would not stop there. If the appointing au-
thority of the panel thought otherwise, the administrative process
would not be dead, because it seems to me that you have previous
routes. Although the right to take him to the President is not a stat-
utory right as far as the employees are concerned, but it is an inherent
right of any appointed official?
Mr. MICHEL. It is a policy difference.
Mr. FASCELL. So if you have a policy difference and the panelists
were upset with the Secretary's action, they could go back to their ap-
pointing authority and say, "We think this 'man acted unwisely and
contrary to our own findings" and take it to the President if necessary,
but at the very least you would have a conflict of policy that would
have to be resolved, and it would be another inhibiting factor on the
Secretary.
Mr. FEINSTEIN. Later in this you provide that the Secretary may
refuse to sign the collective bargaining agreement.
Mr. FASCELL. Where are you quoting from?
Mr. FEINSTETN. Section 1023. He may disapprove an agreement if it
is inconsistent with the requirements of national security or foreign
policy. This Impasse Panel situation seems to be a similar sort of
situation. It is a condition of employment set after an impasse. Why
is that latter standard unacceptable here?
Mr. MICHEL. There is one basic difference : In the one case the Secre-
tary of State is signing an agreement that the State Department man-
agement has agreed to at the bargaining table. In the other case, he
is asked to accept the resolution of an impasse to which State Depart-
ment management has refused to agree.
I don't think the same standard should apply to those two quite
different functions.
Mr. FEINSTEIN. Civil service law provides both parties can agree
to go into compulsory arbitration on the issue. You have no similar
provision.
Mr. MICHEL. The Impasse Panel provides the equivalent, with these
differences that we have described. The idea is to have a mechanism
for resolving the dispute rather than having it drag on and on, and
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we do that with the Impasse Panel. The civil service does it with a
compulsory arbitration procedure.
Mr. FASCELL. Section 1021.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1021 on exclusive recognition again has some
editorial differences, but is essentially the same as the civil service
law, with one exception : This section describes procedures to be,
followed by labor organizations in seeking exclusive recognition and
describes the procedures for an election to determine whether there
shall be an exclusive representative, and if so, which organization
that shall be.
In the Foreign Service, with our worldwide voting population
spread out in a couple of hundred posts, we were concerned that if
we ever had to do a runoff ballot, because there were two competing
organizations and three choices on the ballot, that we would lose 6
months and spend many thousands of dollars doing it.
So we made provision for preferential ballot. The voters would
say if there are three choices on the ballot, what is their No. 1 choice
and what is their No. 2 choice; and in that way you avoid the expense
of a runoff by allocating second choices among the top two choices in
the runoff.
This is in paragraph 2 on page 120.
Aside from that procedural difference, you get to be an exclusive
representative for the Foreign Service, basically the same way you
do for the civil service.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me ask you a simple operational question with
respect to this, since I, personally, have not had any experience with
that.
Obviously, any group of people can start out with the idea-or
any one individual can start with the idea-that he or they would
like to represent the employees in the organization?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. There is a requirement for a number of people within
a unit who would have to be-that number is 30 percent
Mr. MICHEL. Thirty percent.
Mr. FASCELL [continuing]. Within a unit?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. What is a unit?
Mr. MICHEL. For the Foreign Service it is an agencywide unit.
Mr. FASCELL. So that is fixed by definition in the law?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Now, it is conceivable that three different units could
have 30 percent. That is the case you are talking about; is that right?
Am I correct?
Mr. MICHEL. Well, one unit could have.
Mr. FASCELL. But three different units could have 30 percent each?
Mr. MICHEL. You could have a petitioner with 30 percent. You could
have a current representative who intervenes and the nonunion choice
which must be on each ballot, so you can get there without 30 plus 30.
If there is an existing
Mr. FASCELL. You have an existing bargaining representative.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes; so you have competition between a current rep-
resentative and new one.
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Mr. FAscELL. The point I am making, notwithstanding the fact
that you have a current representative, is that you could still wind
up with three petitioners each having 30 percent; that gives you four.
Mr. MICHEL.. That is right. You could have that; not likely but
possible.
Mr. FABCELL. It is a worst-case scenario, but it is theoretically pos-
sible under the law?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FABCELL. Who pays for all this?
Mr. MICHEL. For the election?
Mr. FASCELL. No; just to get where they are going in the petition
process.
Mr. MICHEL. The union pays.
Mr. FABCELL. Not the union. Me, I am an organizer; I am a trouble-
maker, or whatever. I have a grievance; I go out and solicit 30 percent
of the unit to join me in whatever it is I am trying to do, because I
am a great salesman.
Mr. MICHEL. And you say, "We are going to organize. The first
thing, we will have a meeting and everybody should give me a dollar."
Mr. FASCELL. Who bears the cost to do that? Do I?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right, and those people you get to support you.
Mr. FAscELL. In other words, for me to circularize the worldwide
unit, it is my cost, not reimbursable. I am not being argumentative;
I am just trying to understand. I don't want to be paying for that.
Mr. MICHEL. There is a provision on dues allotment.
Mr. FABCELL. I want to be sure some person is not going to be flying
all over the world trying to organize people to become their repre-
sentative in an organizational unit and spend a lot of other money
in hotels and lobbying and what not, and then come back and say, "I
have a nice big fat bill for $50,000."
If a person wants to exercise his right under the law, God bless him.
All I want is to be sure who is paying for it.
Mr. MICHEL. The organizers pay for it and those individuals or
organizations who support them.
Mr. FABCELL. There is nothing in' this law giving them the right to
try to get representation that would in any way incur any cost?
Mr. MICH.. There is one administrative cost.
Mr. FASCELL. I wish you had not said that. What is that?
Mr. MICHEL. It is the cost of providing for an allotment of union
dues to a petitioner who is a labor organization alleging 10 percent of
the employees have membership in the organization ; and that the
union is seeking representation going through this rather elaborate
process. You can. have a separate agreement with that petitioning
union for the allotment of dues out of the salaries of the union mem-
bers, so that it is withheld from the members' pay, and you pay the
one check to the union. We would absorb the administrative costs of
programing the computer to do that.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me get to another worst case scenario : I am a
member of the worldwide unit. I am now represented by the present
exclusive representative. I also signed three other petitions and be-
came part of three other bargaining units. Now what happens?
Mr. MICHEL . You don't become part of any other unit.
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Mr. FASCELL. I become part of some other organization seeking
representation?
Mr. MICHEL. That is all right. You can belong to a lot of organiza-
tions; only one of them can be the exclusive representative. You
can pay dues to all of them.
Mr. FASCELL. You will allot my dues?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. To whom?
Mr. MICHEL. When there is an exclusive representative, then the al-
lotment goes to the exclusive representative.
MT. FASCELL. That is different. Can't it go to a new petitioner?
Mr. MICHEL. If there is no exclusive representative, then the peti-
tioner with 10 percent can get this dues allotment.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's get another worst case scenario. There is no on-
going exclusive representative, and you have three petitioners. How
does the allotment work?
Mr. MICHEL. Any one of them can get the allotment by making that
showing of 10 percent.
Mr. FASCELL. Now we have overlapping signatories at 10 percent.
That 10 percent is on all three petitions; then what?
Mr. MICHEL. You are asking, can we withhold from your salaries
the dues you have signed up to pay the two organizations?
Mr. FASCELL. I would then direct you to tell me to which peti-
tioner
Mr. MICHEL. I think we will duck and pay to both. If you want
to be a member of both and pay to both, we will pay for you; but you
have to tell us to do that.
Mr. FASCELL. Nothing automatic about it?
Mr. MICHEL. No ; what the organization gets is what the employee
tells us to pay from his or her salary.
Mr. FASCELL. If I want to pay three dues or four dues as an employee,
that is my business?
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's go to the next section.
Mr. MICHEL. At the very end of 1021, I might mention that, because
we don't have the history of long-term collective bargaining agree-
ments, we have provided a somewhat different period of insulation of
an incumbent from challenge. The civil service law, 12 months after an
election, permits a challenger to come in only at the expiration of the
current collective bargaining agreement.
While we may not have a collective bargaining agreement in the
traditional model, we provide a 2-year period of insulation and then
the challenger can come in at any time.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the so-called competitive model?
Mr. MICHEL. The traditional pattern in labor-management relations
in the private sector and in the civil service for the union and for the
head of the unit, whether it is office director or Cabinet officer, to sit
down and negotiate a single collective bargaining agreement of a year's
duration, or 2 years' or 3 years' duration, covering the rights and obli-
gations of the union and the agency or office during that period. That
is it.
Mr. FASCELL. And not subject to challenge during that period?
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Mr. MICHEL. You mean, can you come back and say, "I want to
renegotiate" ?
Mr. FASCELL. No; challenged by somebody else seeking representa-
tion.
Mr. MIcHEL. During that period, you can't have somebody else
coming in; the rationale is that it would be disruptive.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand that. Why codify it? Why isn't that a
bargaining principle? Why won't you negotiate at arm's length and
say this is a competitive contract? It is going to run for 3 years, and
part of this contract is that there will be no challengers.
Mr. MICHEL. I think this is something the Congress has-we are
talking about the civil service law, not this bill, but I think this is
something that the Congress has done there and with respect to the
private sector as well because it is you and I negotiating about a third
party's rights.
Mr. FAS'CELL. Agreed, but we are doing that anyway by law in the
whole concept of collective bargaining. I find it amazing as a nonlabor
lawyer to see that we would be concerned about it. But it is interesting.
Just a philosophical quirk at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It is not un-
usual. You will find that all through labor law.
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1022, on employees represented, is where we get
to the single and separate worldwide bargaining unit, including all
employees-other than management officials, confidential employees,
employees engaged in personnel work and the security and criminal
and auditing investigators.
I should say a word about this worldwide unit. We have a very
centralized personnel system. We have a widely dispersed popula-
tion which is moving all of the time. We have 20 people in an embassy
this year, 2 years from now we may still have 20 people there but
they won't be the same ones.
There is a community of interests throughout the Foreign Service
population, and the motivation for collective bargaining in the For-
eign Service, the ground swell that led to our establishing a formal
system, was not issues of parking spaces at an Embassy; it was issues
of selection out, assignment, bread-and-butter, basic issues that are de-
cided by the centralized personnel system and that all employees have
an interest in wherever they are serving.
We have established a history of 8 years working with this system
and we think it works. We have a bill that seeks to minimize differ-
ences among Foreign Service personnel categories. This has been men-
tioned and we think the single bargaining unit is consistent with that
objective.
If we were not to have a legislated single bargaining unit for each
agency, then, I guess, we would litigate. I don't know if we would
get it or not but I think we might well.
To have units smaller than the agency means that you would have
negotiations between the union representing the employees within that
subunit and the head of that subunit on things within the authority
of that office director, or Assistant Secretary, or Ambassador, or what-
ever they might be. You would not reach the issues of central concern
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to the members of the Foreign Service that you reach with the cen-
tralized negotiation with top management on the basis of a worldwide
unit.
Mr. FASCELL. It seems to me the employees in the Department would
insist on worldwide bargaining.
Mr. MICHEL. The exclusive representative certainly does.
Mr. FASCELL. All right.
Mr. FEINSTEIN. There are standards for determination of bargain-
ing units under title VII of the Civil Service Act. Do you think that
a valid argument could be made under those standards for a single
worldwide bargaining unit in the State Department?
Mr. MICHEL. I think a valid argument could be made. I don't think
that there is any need or desirability for deciding that issue over and
over again. We propose to preserve what one of the factors would
be the history of bargaining in the field. The history of bargaining
in this field is a single unit. If this is what the employees want, if
this is what works with our unique system of personnel, why not say
so?
We do think the agencywide unit meets the criteria of clear and
identifiable community of interests among the employees, effective
dealings and efficiency of operations.
Section 1023, on representation rights and duties, describes the re-
sponsibilities of the labor organization that has been accorded exclu-
sive recognition. That is a right and a duty to act in the interests of
all employees in the unit without regard to whether they are members
of the union or not.
They have a right to be present at discussions with employees in
the unit or their representatives on conditions of employment, and
this is essentially the same as what is in the Civil Service Reform Act
for representation rights and duties in the civil service.
Ms. SCHLIINDT. Does the employee at all times have the right to de-
cide whether or not an exclusive representative is going to be at any
given hearing or judicial proceedings, or administrative proceeding, or
are there cases in this bill where the exclusive representative can attend
a proceeding even if the employee does not want that person to be
there?
Mr. MICHEL. Sure. We have this situation that we described earlier.
Let us say you have a group of employees in the Department, not a
labor organization but a group having a common interest, who want
to talk about general conditions of employment. The exclusive repre-
sentative has the right to be present at that meeting whether or not
those employees are members of the union. They would be members of
the unit; whether they are members of the organization or not is
immaterial.
The purpose of that is protect the rights of the exclusive representa-
tives so management does not go around through the back door and
talk to others in derogation of the exclusive rights of the elected
representative.
Ms. SCHLUNDT. I am thinking more of the situation where the issue
involves an individual employee's interest.
Mr. MICHEL. You will have that in chapter 11 when we get to griev-
ances, where the right to go to the grievance board is the right of the
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union, as we tried to parallel this with the right of the union to go to
arbitration under negotiated agreements procedures. That is chap-
ter H.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't know on what the issue is raised, but if the issue
is raised on the right of the individual to do what he wants, and the
right of the organization after he once decides to become part of that
organization, it seems to me the matter is settled unless there is some
specific exception made either in the law or in the collective bargain-
ing contract. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Mr. FEINSTEIN. Mr. Michel, section 1023 (b) (1) (A) at the end, there
is a phrase starting with "Unless specific application."
Mr. MICHEL. Where?
Mr. FEINSTEIN. 1023(b) (1) (A). That language started with "un-
less" appears here. It does not appear in civil service reform.
Mr. FASCELL. What page are you on?
MS. SCHLUNDT. Page 122.
Mr. MICHEL. 1022. That is an exception to the right of the union to
be present at the meeting described where you are talking about the
specific application of working conditions to specific individuals. That
is not in the Civil Service Reform Act.
Mr. FEINSTEZN. What is the rationale for it?
Mr. MICHEL. It is a judgment. How exclusive is exclusive? And
where it is general conditions of employment, it seems right that the
exclusive representative should have an opportunity to be present be-
cause his rights could be affected.
Where it is an individual or group of individuals talking about per-
sonal application to them of particular conditions of employment,
that it was not necessary to protect the union's rights to give the union
a right to be present, it is policy judgment.
Mr. FEINSTEIN. Who would decide that?
Mr. MICHEL. Management would decide it at its peril. If it was
wrong it is an unfair labor practice.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me go over that slowly. Just start out by reading
it to me on that section right there beginning with "exclusive."
Mr. MICHEL. Exclusive representatives shall be given the opportu-
nity to be represented at-
Mr. FASCELL. Stop there. The law says he shall be given the oppor-
tunity to be represented. Who would keep him out?
Mr. MICHEL. I don't understand that.
Mr. FASCELL. The law is "providing that an exclusive representative
shall be given the opportunity to be represented at certain things."
Who is going to keep him out?
Mr. MICHEL. It is a duty to inform him and ,let him know it is going
on.
Mr. FASCELL. So it is not a question of keeping him out or letting
him in?
Mr. MICHEL. It is the opportunity to be represented which means in-
forming him and saying we are going to have a meeting.
Mr. FASCELL. I am trying to make a record. You are not talking
about locking the door and keeping the man out. It is simply inform-
in him that something is about to transpire.
Mr. MICHEL. There is a meeting and you have a right to be there if
you want to be.
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Mr. FASCELL. But there is no authority in this section or in chapter
10 which would keep that individual out if he has a bargaining con-
tract and is the exclusive representative?
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. I want to be sure because my colleagues over here got
me confused a little bit.
Now he should be given the opportunity to be represented at what?
Mr. MICHEL. At a formal discussion.
Mr. FASCELL. What is a formal discussion? Is that a term of art? I
am not being argumentative.
Mr. MICHEL. It is a term of art, I am told, that is used in the labor
sector, that formal discussion is talking about general conditions of
employment. There is apparent redundancy.
Mr. FASCELL. I am going to draw a scenario. Three guys are walk-
ing down the hall coming back from the men's room and decide to
stop in somebody's office. I would not consider that a formal discus-
sion when they stop in. If they have some kind of ad hoc meeting to
say we are going to get together and go down and talk to Assistant
Secretary so and so or whatever it is, I would gather that is more
formal but that is a question of fact.
Mr. MICHEL. I think it contemplates putting the two together. If
you are going to give somebody notice and an opportunity, it contem-
plates some kind of formality to a scheduled meeting.
Mr. FABCELL. This law presumes that the individual who has the
burden of notifying the exclusive representative knows that the meet-
ing is going to take place. It can't make sense otherwise.
Mr. MICHEL. There is a body of case law on what constitutes formal
discussion and I don't know enough about it to discuss it.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't either. I am trying to get the thing fleshed out
on the record.
What is the meaning of the clause that was questioned here-"unless
the specific application of those conditions to the particular employees
is the sole issue"?
Mr. MICHEL. I think that is the difference between saying "commu-
nicators don't get proper consideration in promotions" and the em-
ployee or several employees coming and saying we should have been
promoted.
Mr. FABCELL. That is not considered a general complaint which puts
a burden on whoever is holding the meeting to let the exclusive rep-
resentative know it.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Let me ask another question and turn it around. Why
shouldn't the burden be upon the employees equally with the individual
who is being contacted, I presume, in management, although that is
not clear here? Why shouldn't the burden be on both sides to advise
the exclusive representative that formal discussions are about to take
place? Why is that a burden of management?
Mr. MICHEL. I think here again you have to look to the parties, to
the contractual relationship, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. I know, but there is only one exclusive representa-
tive for a single unit. We don't have to be a member of the organization.
Mr. MICHEL. But the responsibility of the individual employee to
the exclusive representative is a matter of internal discipline. It would
seem to me, it would be unusual.
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Mr. FASCELL. So, an individual employee represented by the exclu-
sive representative, who is not a member of the organization and does
not want to be a member of the organization and pays no dues to it,
is not required to pay any dues to it and therefore does not have to
worry about giving anybody any notice about anybody he talks to
about anything?
Mr. MICHEL. He does not have any contractual relationship with
that outfit at all, so what are we going to do, impose disciplinary
action on him if he does not?
Mr. FASCELL. That is the reason I asked. Now you have 10 employees
who are in the same category and they decide they want a formal
discussion about general conditions of employment. This provision re-
quires management to notify the exclusive representative that some-
thing is about to take place and there is no burden on those employees
who are not members of the organization as such.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. Unless the matters to be discussed apply only to those
particular individuals. Then in that case there is no requirement on
the management to notify the sole representative that a discussion is
about to take place.
Mr. MICHEL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. I just want to be sure. Let us go on. I tell you what, let
us not go on.
Are we about through with that section?
Mr. MICHEL. The section goes on and on. There is not much else that
is in there.
Mr. FASCELL. You mean in terms of change?
Mr. MICHEL. In terms of changes.
Mr. FASCELL. Let us finish with that section then and in 1032 to see
what other matters are in there. On page 122, is there anything else in
subparagraph B-1(b) down to the bottom of that page?
Mr. MICHEL. No; there are only a, couple of things that are on page
124 that I think are noteworthy.
Mr. FASCELL. Page 123 is a restatement.
Mr. MICHEL. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. You say there are a couple of things on page 124?
Mr. MICHEL. Paragraph (5) at the top refers to a process I de-
scribed earlier. This is the other half of the equation. I mentioned
earlier management has the right to decide what joint policies there
should be. This provides that there will be joint negotiations of those
uniform policies among the foreign affairs agencies.
Then paragraph (f) at the bottom provides something that parallels
national consultation rights under the Civil Service Reform Act so
that the union will have an opportunity to present its views on things
that deal, not just with the one agency or with one unit, but rather
with Government-wide responsibilities' of those secretaries, like over-
seas differentials and allowances would be an example.
Mr. FASCELL. All right.
Mr. MICHEL. That is all in that section.
Mr. FASCELL. All of the blank pages that start with section 7117 on
page 124-A.
Mr. MICHEL. There you get the national consultation rights provi-
sion in the Civil Service Act, which is parallel to what is at the bottom
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of page 124. And you have this compelling need for uniform proce-
dures, which is the civil service way of dealing with the problem of
joint regulation, uniform regulations.
Mr. FASCELL. What is the nonapplicability of section 7117 starting
on page 124-A, since that is not
Mr. MICHEL. As I said, the principal thing in that material-which
we have in our bill-is a duty to bargain in good faith. That is in there.
What we do not have is this notion that if the management thinks
there is it compelling need to take something out of collective bargain-
ing, that the management proves it to the satisfaction of the FLRA
and then does not bargain. Instead, we provide that we have the right
to decide on a compelling need for uniformity and then bargain
jointly.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you. Where does that take us?
Mr. MICHEL. Section 1024, resolution of implementation disputes.
This is something new that we have not had in our present labor-
management system. As you know, the Executive order provided for
negotiated grievance procedures as part of the labor-management
system.
Mr. FASCELL. Since you are going into something new and it is al-
ready 5 o'clock, I think we better hold it right there. I don't think we
can finish this whole chapter anywa.
Mr. MICHEL. This is probably the* most complicated chapter in the
bill.
Mr. FASCELL. So since this is something that is not in the Executive
order and not in the Civil Service Act, let us stop right there and pick
up from there at the earliest opportunity and give you fellows a chance
to go back and see if you can clear off your desks.
Mine is impossible.
Mr. READ. Happily we get back to codification in the next chapter,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. It has been very helpful, I am glad you pulled it out
and did it this way.
The subcommittee will stand adjourned, subject to the call of the
Chair tomorrow morning at 9:30.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 5:05 p.m. the meeting of the subcommittees was
adjourned, to reconvene at 9 :30 a.m., Thursday, September 20, 1979.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The joint subcommittees met at 9:40 a.m. in room 2172, Rayburn
House Office Building, Hon. Pat Schroeder and Hon. Dante Fascell
(chairpersons of the subcommittees) presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. Today we continue our joint hearings on the Foreign
Service Act of 1979.
Congresswoman Schroeder is currently testifying before the Senate.
Our first witness today is a friend and a distinguished American,
the Honorable George Ball, former Under Secretary of State who has
a distinguished career in public and private service and knows a great
deal about the Department. I am sure he will make a very important
contribution to our considerations here this morning.
We also have Mr. Richard Bloch, who is chairman of the Foreign
Service Grievance Board, and Mr. James Washington, who is presi-
dent of the Thursday Luncheon Group.
Mr. Ball, we are delighted to welcome you again and have you in
this committee room where you spent so many enjoyable days educat-
ing Members of Congress.
STATEMENT OF HON.- GEORGE BALL, FORMER UNDER SECRETARY
OF STATE
Mr. BALL. Mr. Chairman, I always did enjoy it. I found this was one
of the committees in Congress where there was a serious attempt to
get at the truth and to the extent those of us in the bureaucracy could
assist, it semed a challenging and interesting assignment.
I have enjoyed coming before this committee.
I am here this morning, Mr. Chairman, to reflect on the proposed
legislation with regard to the Foreign Service and with no suggestion
on that I am expert on this particular piece of or proposed legislation.
I have read it quickly a couple of times, and I hope I may be able, in
the light of fairly long experience, to suggest the value of what is
sought to be done here.
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The country's foreign policy is no wiser or more effective than the
men and women who shape and administer it. The qualities required
for diplomacy are many and varied.
Certain of them are obvious. One, is a familiarity with the lan-
guages and customs of a country to which the diplomat is accredited.
Two, a gift for observing and interpreting what he or she observes.
Three, a talent for comprehending the often opaque statements of
foreign leaders. Four, a willingness to assert his or her country's in-
terests in the face of antagonism and even the threat and the courage to
accept unpopularity. Five, a resistance to flattery and the facile per-
suasiveness of foreign representatives. Six, the discipline to carry out
policies with which he or she may not personally agree and, finally, a
willingness to live in often uncomfortable surroundings and to move
on command from one post to another without regard either to his or
her own predilections or those of his or her family.
Mr. Chairman, those are not easy requirements to satisfy and they
cannot in my view be met by on-the-job training of men and women
without a proper background of study and experience.
Fortunately in our career Foreign Service we have an invaluable
national resource of highly trained and dedicated men and women.
Like any career service it can maintain its effectiveness and its quality
only if it offers adequate opportunities for those who join it.
How does one maintain an elan in a service which is as frequently
calumniated and misunderstood as our Foreign Service? How does
one maintain a reservoir of ambitious effective Foreign Service officers
if promotions are slow and merit not always fully rewarded?
The Foreign Service Act of 1979 which this committee is now con-
sidering should enhance the effectiveness of the Foreign Service while
at the same time preserving the interests of the civil service employees
who perform invaluable roles in the Department of State.
The Department desperately needs its civil service employees. It
needs the quality of personnel which it has had in the past and I think
should be able to have in the future if enough attention is paid to it.
A civil servant in this situation is a man or woman who is not pre-
pared to accept assignments abroad for any number of reasons. In
most cases he or she is technically trained. He may be an economist. He
may bring some other discipline to the work he is doing.
I have the highest regard for the civil servants as well as the foreign
servants with whom I worked for 6 years. I often found them people
who nobody paid much attention to but who could provide a great
insight when the opportunity came for them to bring it to bear.
Although I do not profess a mastery of the details of the proposed
legislation, it seems to me to achieve several essential purposes.
The first is that it would make a clear distinction between the For-
eign Service and the Civil Service and provide for transferring out of
the Foreign Service the purely domestic employees who are not pre-
pared to commit themselves to overseas assignments. I think that is a
useful move. It would give the Foreign Service greater homogeneity
with a consequent improvement in the spirit of the Corps.
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The members of the Foreign Service have important shared values
and qualities-not merely training and experience in the shaping
and administration of foreign policy but a familiarity with the diffi-
culties, satisfactions, peculiar hardships, and special advantages of
service overseas.
I do not mean to suggest that the Foreign Service is or should be
regarded as though it were an exclusive club although one based on
achievement.
It is essential to any career service that it have its own identity and
that there exist a camaraderie and sense of common purpose among its
members, a revered, tradition, pride in their professionalism and a re-
spect for the achievements of their most distinguished colleagues.
That esprit has for a variety of reasons been considerably depleted
within the last decade. Among other things it has suffered from a
growing, and I think, unfortunate tendency to proliferate the leader-
ship of our foreign policy so that it is not always clear just who is in
command and what the role of the State Department may be.
Our Foreign Service has suffered also from the deplorable practice
in this age of jet planes and instant communications of dealing with
all important problems directly from -Washington. More often than
not our Embassies overseas find themselves brushed aside whenever a
problem of significance comes along, while someone who may know
little about the customs of the area or even the history of a particular
development arrives to take over the negotiations.
In addition, an Embassy officer or even an ambassador may learn
from the Foreign Ministry of a country to which he is accredited of
telephone conversations that they have had directly with Washington,
conversations of which he has not been informed by his own
government.
I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, there is nothing more humiliating
or more harmful to morale than an experience of that kind, and it is
repeated very often.
The failure to make proper use of our diplomatic establishment is
a serious error, since there is a great reservoir of knowledge and
wisdom in our Foreign Service. I hope that sooner or later we shall
return to a less flamboyant diplomacy, in which established diplomatic
channels and the talents of our career officers are more effectively
employed.
A second provision of the proposed legislation which could serve
also to encourage the Foreign Service and increase its attractiveness
to potential entrants is the proposed creation of a Senior Foreign
Service which would provide not only greater rewards but also more
vigorous performance standards for our older diplomats. Coupled with
the other provisions of the proposed legislation, this would facilitate
the absolutely indispensable process of selection out-the clearing
out of deadwood which invariably accumulates in any career service.
Essential to the dynamic operation of any institution is the avail-
ability of promotion to those who belong to that institution. If the
top positions are held too long by any generation of officers regard-
less of their past qualifications, movement up the ladder can be blocked
by congestion at the top. I emphasize this point particularly bec"se
in my years in the State Department I was constantly impressedwith
the quality of many of the younger officers.
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I was always dismayed when I saw them disappear into private life
or elsewhere in the Government because they did not feel they could
achieve the fulfillment of their ambitions within the Service.
It is absolutely necessary to the vitality of the Foreign Service that
the system permit them to demonstrate their full potential by maintain-
ing the momentum of promotion. That is possible only if there are
adequate provisions for a weeding out of those who have been long in
the Service but who either lack imagination or competence, or have
become so tired or jaded that they no longer bring to their work imagi-
There are many other provisions of this legislation which should, I
am sure, be commended. It is in a sense a measure of tidying up.
It would codify the personnel system and laws of the Foreign Service
and would simplify and reduce the number of personnel categories.
I have not had either the time or occasion to study these measures in
detail, but I did want to bring to this committee my sense that at least
in its broad thrust this is a very useful and indeed necessary piece of
legislation if we are to maintain the integrity and the spirit and the
effectiveness of our Foreign Service.
Mr. FASCEiL. Thank you very much, Mr. Ball, for bringing us the
benefit of your years of experience and the conclusions and opinions
you have arrived at with respect to the thrust of this legislation.
I want to yield to Mr. Leach now and let him pursue a line of ques-
tioning he had yesterday which you dwelt on in your testimony, and
I am sure he is anxious to pursue it.
Mr. LEACH. I appreciate that introduction, sir, but I am not sure
which exact line of questioning you are referring to. I will proceed
Mr. Ball, you recently wrote a column in the Washington Post,
which I thouht was extremely thoughtful contrasting what you de-
scribed as the- show biz diplomacy of Mr. Young and to some degree
Mr. Kissinger and possibly Mr. Strauss, with the applied diplomacy of
a professional diplomat like Ellsworth Bunker.'
Is there anything. in your judgment that should be learned from the
experiences of the last half dozen years in American diplomacy on
which you would advise an American President as to how to proceed
in the future and how to utilize the Department of State?
I might go one step further. Beyond the concept of roving ambas-
sadors is the issue of where responsibility for foreign affairs is posi-
tioned. Should the Secretary of State be clearly predominant, or is it
simply up to the will of the President and how he uses the NSC or
any other level of Government?
Mr. BALL. Let me address myself to the second comment first and
I think it is absolutely essential that the Secretary of State be
recognized, as was originally intended, as the President's principal
adviser on foreign policy d as the man responsible for the execu-
tion of policies through the DDpartment of State.
Within the past years,-be-inning actually in 1961 with President
Kennedy, there has been a tendency to have almost a second Secre-
t The column referred to may be found oil p. 408.
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tary of State in the person of the President's National Security Ad-
viser. This makes for ghastly confusion. It makes for a fuzziness of
policy because any man who is assertive and has views in that role is
going to make them known if he is permitted to do so. That confuses
foreigners and it leaves us with a policy line which is articulated by
too many people.
This is particularly so when the National Security Adviser appears
on television and makes speeches and calls in ambassadors and makes
visits abroad on diplomatic missions and so on.
It raises the question: Who is running the store? Who is in charge
of our foreign policy?
If there is an articulation by the National Security Adviser which
differs in any nuance from the articulation by the Secretary of State,
which one governs in this case? Will not a foreign power play one off
against the other, as indeed has happened?
When the National Security Council was created, it was never in-
tended that this would be the case. No matter how much experience is
represented in this room, I would doubt that there is a single person
who could remember the national security assistant of President Eisen-
hower. He was an anonymous man. He collated the papers from the
various departments, and he saw things were brought together so there
could be a decision. He did not preside over the National Security
Council. He did not himself inject his personality into our foreign
policy.
That is, in my judgment, the way things should be run, and they
were run that way after Mr. Kissinger stopped being the National
Security Adviser and became the Secretary of State. You may recall
he insisted on having both hats. That is a very good solution.
I think if the Secretary of State were also the National Security
Adviser and presided over the National Security Council, it would be
very sensible. It would avoid an enormous lot of confusion.
We now have almost two State Departments. We have the Office of
the National Security Adviser, which has been subject to the same kind
of hypertrophy that often happens in bureaucracy, and we have the
Department of State. They do not always see eye to eye, and there is
very often an effort made by the National Security Council staff to run
off with a problem and not tell the Department of State what they are
doing.
This is a very strong feeling I have. We have gone even further.
We have Mr. Strauss with some kind of an undefined role as far as the
Middle East is concerned. He says he does not report to the Secretary
of State but that he is a partner of the Secretary of State whatever
that ambiguous word may mean.
I think this is a terrible way to run foreign policy, quite frankly.
On the second question of the degree to which there can be a move-
ment back toward the effective use of the foreign policy establishment
we have created some bad habits in other governments. We have gotten
very small. countries in the habit of insisting that they will not talk to
anybody but the U.S. Secretary of State. We have to break these habits.
It is going to take a firm determination on the part of some President
who will say, "I am not going to have this. We are going to move back
toward a quiet more traditional diplomacy in which we can do our busi-
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ness and avoid a lot of the flamboyance and the insistence on being in
the center of the spotlight which exists today."
Unless we do this we are going to turn diplomacy into more and
more of a sideshow. Obviously such a change is going to require a cer-
tain discipline. Other countries are going to have to understand that
our ambassador is the President's representative in that country. They
will have to receive him on that basis. We are going to have to be a
little tough about this.
Mr. LEACH. To follow up briefly, we seem to be seeing also an erosion
of the State Department's basic responsibilities. For example, there is
talk of the visa function being shifted to the INS, and a proposal that
the commercial function be shifted to the Department of Commerce is
before the Congress.
Would you provide us your opinion on whether in this modern
world the Department of State should be bolstered in its areas of re-
sponsibility or is it possible that some functions would be more suc-
cessfully carried out with other departments having jurisdiction?
Mr. BALL. I do not want to suggest analogies which are not really
analogies. I could tell you no major business in the United States
would ever conduct its affairs the way we conduct foreign policy with
a lot of bits and pieces assigned to different people to do with resultant
confusion.
It is not true of the foreign officers of other major countries where
there is a great deal more concentration and a coherent line of direction.
For example, proposed legislation which I understand is coming up
would take the commercial officers out of the embassies and give them
to the Department of Commerce and take the administration of coun-
tervailing duties out of the Treasury and give it to the Department of
Commerce. I think that is terrible.
For example, with regard to countervailing duties it would mean
assigning one of the most sensitive instruments the Government has to
the agency of the Government which is the most vulnerable to the lob-
bies that have an interest in protectionism.
I think it would be a great mistake. If you have to assign it some-
where why not put it in the Office of Trade Negotiators?
Mr. LEACH. Shifting to a somewhat different subject, as a former
junior and minor midlevel Foreign Service officer, I was in the De-
partment at the time pronounced change was made by the introduction
of what was called the cone system.
It always struck me that the cone, system was rigid and foolish. This
was especially so in relying on the cone approach in the selection of
new officers for a given number of administrative, consular, or other
positions which would be selected and defined before recruitment. Be-
yond that there were rigidities that occurred once one had entered the
Foreign Service and was expected to pick a single career track.
From your experience would you comment on your appraisal of the
cone approach? Do you thing it has been helpful or harmful to the
Foreign Service in general?
Mr. BALL. I have a hard time having an informed opinion on
this because I was never involved in the details of it. I did have a
feeling that the rigidities were considerable. I really could not help-
fully give you such comment.
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Mr. LEACH. Shifting to one other subject, all of us from time to time
have been very concerned with ambassadorial appointments. We have
seen some exceptional ones and we have seen some less exceptional
ones. Certainly it is a matter of Presidential discretion to a degree.
How does one institutionally go about safeguarding merit in the
selection process? Would you have any device? Would it be appropri-
ate to set up legislatively a selection board which would consider merit
as the primary qualification whether it be career or noncareer goal in
selection of ambassadors?
Mr. BALL. Obviously you cannot take that function away from the
President. It is a question of what instruments he has to advise him.
I think there might be some merit in a Board with the understanding
it would have advisory functions. The President himself has to make
the final decision.
Mr. LEACH. It might add a little bit of pressure if the Board did not
give a high mark to an individual.
Mr. BALL. It might avoid some appointments that are patently made
for motives other than the improvement of the diplomacy of the
United States.
Mr. LEACH. I agree with that. I thank you.
I might say, Mr. Chairman, in giving up the questioning, that
clearly anyone who has followed the institution of the Department of
State over the last three or four decades picks out two or three people
such as George Kennan and George Ball as the preeminent philoso-
phers of our Government as well as executors of policy. We are hon-
ored you are here before us today, Mr. Ball.
Mr. BALL. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Leach as I anticipated has asked all the right
questions. I just want to ask one more.
You placed considerable emphasis on the need for mobility within a
department for promotion and to eliminate stagnation at the top. The
Senior Foreign Service concept is one way of reaching that. The other,
which is very important, is mandatory retirement.
Mr. BALL. That is right.
Mr. FASCELL. We have a political problem confronting us since the
Congress has eliminated mandatory retirement and court decisions are
fast going that way also.
The bill does provide for mandatory retirement. I just wondered,
based on your experience within a small department that is highly
specialized, how you see the value or the necessity for mandatory
retirement?
Mr. BALL. I think there is great virtue in it for the simple reason
that it enables the senior members of the Foreign Service to begin to
make their future plans and to know at what point they are going to
have to leave the department.
It avoids the kinds of pressures of people who may be very popular
but not necessarily very competent to stay on more or less indefinitely.
I am very much in favor of it. There are obviously situations where
you need a man beyond the age of 60 and there has to be some room
for extension which, as I understand it, this bill provides.
Mr. FASCELL. It does.
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Mr. BALL. If the President wants to designate him as an ambassador
as I understand it he is exempt from the age 60 retirement rule. I think
that is good enough. That takes care of keeping the people who are
needed.
If you take away the mandatory requirement provision altogether
the pressures to keep people on into their dotage are going to be very
considerable. I am almost 70 years old so I can say this.
Mr. FASCELL. I must say you look very well to be almost 70 years
old. I hope I do as well and continue to be as able.
We thank you very much, Mr. Ball. I think we have explored all of
the difficult questions and we appreciate your taking the time to testify
and answer our inquiries.
Mr. BALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Coming before
this committee is a nostalgic experience but it is as pleasant as always.
Mr. FASCELL. We hope to see you again soon.
The subcommittees are going to take a short recess while we go an-
swer a rollcall. We will come right back.
[The subcommittees recessed for a rollcall at 10:07 a.m.]
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am going to assert the prerogative of the co-
Chair and reconvene. I am sorry we missed part of the morning. It is
not one of the more sane days around here although we are getting
fewer and fewer sane days.
I thank you, Mr. Bloch, for being here. I guess I will let you in-
troduce the people who are with you. We have their names. It is
delightful to have you. We will be interested in hearing your testimony.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD I. BLOCH, CHAIRMAN, FOREIGN SERVICE
GRIEVANCE BOARD
Mr. BLOCH. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
With me is Pratt Byrd who is executive secretary of the Grievance
Board. Also with me is David Silberman who is one of our counsel
and Phil Dorman who is the deputy chairman of the Board. They are
graciously assisting me this morning.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We are very happy to have all of you. If you want
to summarize your testimony we will put it in the record as is written
and you can do whatever you would like.
Mr. BLOCH. I would be glad to summarize, whatever will expedite
the process.
I indicate in my written statement which I will reiterate that we
are delighted to have been invited. It is most unusual for arbitrators
to be involved in this sort of a construction or modification process of
the grievance system. In the private sector the neutral is normally
called in well after the fact.
We are normally called in to interpret or apply a collective bargain-
ing agreement or a system that has long been decided upon. We find
this a very unique experience.
The Foreign Service itself is a unique world as everyone agrees
and perhaps particularly so to those of us coming in from the outside.
As arbitrators we find no analog whatsoever in the private sector.
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You may be aware of some of the background of our present system
and I will not burden the record with that.
I myself came in some time after the initiation of the present legisla-
tion. I came in 1976. I joined a Board that now consists of 15 mem-
bers; 8 of them like myself are professional labor arbitrators; 7 are
retired employees of the Foreign Affairs agencies.
As I indicated in my statement we think this is a superb group of
people. The arbitrator members are all members of the National
Academy of Arbitrators and of that group we have the current
secretary-treasurer, three past presidents and a president-elect.
The staff who do a remarkable job for us are supplied by the respec-
tive Foreign Affairs agencies. They guide each of the cases through
the original filing. They marshall the necessary paperwork. They talk
to witnesses if necessary. They in essence get the record ready for final
disposition by the Board whether that is through a hearing process,
full hearing in the nature of any administrative or quasi-legal hear-
ing or the section 906 cases which are those we hear solely on the
basis of the written briefs and written records.
The staff also prepares summaries of the decisions and I use the
word "sanitizing" advisedly but we prepare the final opinions for dis-
tribution hopefully abiding by the Privacy Act requirements. In''
essence, we are trying to build a body of common law precedent for
the parties to follow and hopefully reduce the actual litigation before
us in years to come. That is an enormous task.
Thus far we have some 70 decisions that have been prepared and
are just now being circulated to the parties. The decisions are in their
entirety with the exception of the various names and identifying
places.
I have some statistics in my statement. Overall the Board has issued
since 1976 including some 40 or 50 cases which carried over from the..
previous interim Board about 229 decisions. In 1978 we issued 39'
decisions. As my statement indicates these were split between the full
hearings and the section 906 cases.
I would like to devote a few comments to the proposed legislation
and of course turn myself over to you for any questions you may have.
I serve as the umpire and arbitrator for a number of Federal agen-
cies including the Internal Revenue Service, the Labor Department,
the Treasury Department, Community Services Administration, Jus-
tice Department, and a number of others. I am familiar in general
with arbitration systems both in and out of the Federal sector.
My judgment and it is a unanimous one, I might add, is that this
system we have now even on the basis of the old legislation is the single
best Federal sector system we know. We think the act is well struc-
tured and for the most part adequately responsive to the needs of the
parties.
I have been impressed with both the quality of the presentations
of the parties and the responses of our Board.
The draft legislation has a number of changes. Some are of great
interest to the parties and perhaps of academic interest to us since we
really are in the role of playing a judicial role and not a legislative
or an advocacy role but some reflect directly upon our functions. I
wanted to just mention a few of them.
I indicate and I would reiterate that we do not see any particular
problems in accommodating some of the new functions which have
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been assigned the Board such as taking the termination for cause
cases and the various disputes which may arise among the parties. We
think certainly structurally we are prepared to handle that.
By virtue of its size and the other inherent institutional impedi-
ments I think it is unrealistic for this committee and for us to expect
this particular grievance system to function as efficiently as some do
in the private sector. Indeed it would be a mistake not to recognize
the. peculiar and the particular nature of the Foreign Service and of
the demands of its employees. These are highly skilled people who
are far removed from any sort of a production' line concept or even
a trade concept that we may see in the private sector.
But there are modifications which would go a long way toward
strengthening the potential of this system.
I note an interpretative problem in my written statement which we
think may no longer be a problem and I hope it is not. In a decision
issued several years ago, we found that the agency had erred in its
interpretation of a regulation that resulted in depriving the grievant
of a shipping allowance. We ordered the agency to reimburse the
person. The Comptroller of the agency refused contending that the
payment would have been illegal and therefore the Comptroller would
have been vulnerable to personal liability as a result of GAO regula-
tions and statute.
The agency desired to seek an opinion from the General Accounting
Office. That created a substantial dilemma.
The Foreign Service Act as it now exists reads as if the proper
recourse in appealing any Board decision is to a Federal district
court. The Foreign Service Grievance Board was not created, we
think, to serve as a trial forum for the GAO, vet one can certainly
understand the agency's reticence to move, faced as it was with these
conflicting legal mandates.
I said in my statement that clarification is in order. In reading the
proposed draft I believe the clarification has been accomplished. I am
referring to section 1113 (c) where it says that the "only" appeal from
a Board order will be to a Federal district court.
I read, as an arbitrator, the word "only" as being very significant.
I guess what we are asking is that the committee in its report reflect
the fact that this change was made for that purpose. It would be
immensely helpful to us and to the parties.
As you know the act provides that in certain respects our decisions
are binding and in other areas we issue only recommendations. My
own personal belief is that parties settle their own disputes more
readily when the final step of a process is binding. Nevertheless I am
not particularly troubled by the existence of recommendations in this
act inasmuch as the scope of the area subject to recommendations is
reasonably narrow and the legislation does require that when an
agency wishes to reject one of our recommendations it must do so with
great specificity.
They must note three grounds and those include if the recommenda-
tion is contrary to law, if it is somehow an infringement on national
security and the third is if it somehow impinges upon the efficiency
of the Service.
It is that third category which bothers me. The first two are not
narticularly troublesome. Surely you can understand a rejection if it
is a problem with law or national security. The third one concerns us.
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The experience from our standpoint has been that the agency wish-
ing to support the grievance system will accept our recommendations
if at all possible in any context. The agency wishing to undermine
the system to suppress grievances by employees will, reject recom-
mendations whenever possible citing this "efficiency of the Service,"
which is sometimes set forth as morale of the employees or iinpos-
sibility for one reason or another. These generalities translate into
"we are doing it because we want to." We are saying that we would
not like to see the same rationale applied to a rejection of our recom-
mendation as employed by the agency in originally rejecting the
grievance. That is not the idea of the grievance system.
I conclude that the system should be designed to inform agency
heads that a rejection in this context may not be founded on the mere
premise that it would somehow disturb the business as usual routine.
I recommend that portion of the act be deleted. I am referring to
that third portion.
A significant problem also exists with those sections of the act which
refer to former officers and their rights to grieve, among other things,
denials of allowances, or financial benefits, or circumstances that are
somehow illegal or improper with their involuntary retirement.
The problem is a very basic one. We are not entirely sure of who
a former officer is. We do not know, although we think we know, but
we do not know for sure what Congress intended in terms of the rights
accorded a former officer.
Is someone who is off the rolls for any reason a former officer?
Should we interpret this to mean, for example, that someone who was
summarily discharged now may not bring their termination case
before us because they are a former officer?
We do not think that was intended by the Congress but the problem
still exists in the present draft and we suggest some clarification would
be helpful.
The other problem as I indicate in my written statement concerns
this financial benefit. As it now stands a former officer may grieve in
essence anything which deals with money as opposed to for example
the correction of an OER or termination question.
It is not clear to me that is what Congress intended that a person
who is off the rolls should now be able to come in and raise any sort
of a money question. Arguably that provision was put in.there to allow
the former officer to bring financial questions which still affect him or
her as a former officer such as pensions and continuing allowances.
The act seems to suggest a far broader scope and all we are asking
for is some clarification as to which way to go on that. We do not have
any particular feelings. Obviously we are ready to proceed with what-
ever the congressional intent would have been.
In plenary sessions the Board has discussed these questions at sub-
stantial length. We have reached our own conclusions in the interest
of unanimity among the Board. We will take these positions absent
further expression of congressional intent. But we are not in the busi-
ness of legislating and that is why we seek your assistance.
A final request, which we have relayed to Ms. Schlundt who has been
very helpful to us, is: we are confounded on a number of occasions by
a substantial dearth of any legislative history with respect to this act
and it would be helpful if this committee after its endeavors would
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simply set forth those changes which are intended as merely clarifying
in nature as opposed to those which are intended to effect substantive
changes.
That concludes my written remarks. I am certainly available to re-
spond to any questions you may have about our operations or anything
else relevant to the Board.
[Mr. Bloch's prepared statement follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD I. BLOCH, CHAIRMAN OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE
GRIEVANCE BOARD
THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT OF 1979
It is a privilege to have been invited to appear before these two Committees
and testify about grievance procedures, the Foreign Service Grievance Board
and that part of the legislation you are now considering relative to the Grievance
Board. I hope my information will be useful. I shall be pleased to attempt to
answer questions you might have.
It is unusual for an arbitrator such as myself to be involved in the construc-
tion or modification of a grievance system. In private industry, where I am ac-
tive on a full-time basis as an arbitrator, the neutral is called into the act after
the parties-management and union-have sat down together and decided upon
the role of the arbitrator and the limits of his or her power and authority. To be
invited to contribute in any context to the rules of the game is a unique ex-
perience.
The grievance system for the Foreign Service is itself unique, as indicated by
its genesis. While management (the State Department) and labor (the Ameri-
can Foreign Service Association) were in consultation and, to a certain extent,
in agreement, Congress became involved as a third party and ultimately put its
legislative stamp on this grievance system. Similar machinery in industry and
the private sector is based exclusively on agreement between the parties, often
enshrined in the work contract, without the benefit (or handicap) of legislative
endorsement.
You may be aware of some of the background of our present system and earlier
Congressional interest in the establishment of a grievance system for Foreign
Service employees of the three Foreign Service Agencies. I did not come on the
scene until 1976, after the legislation was enacted, when I was invited to become
a member of. the Board. Sandy Porter was Chairman at that time and played a
substantial role in dealing with the groundwork on our present regulations.
The Board presently consists of fifteen members, eight of whom, myself in-
cluded, are professional labor arbitrators, and seven of whom are retired em-
ployees of the Foreign Affairs Agencies. The range of experience and arbitration
expertise on the Board is extremely broad. All arbitrators are members of the
National Academy of Arbitrators and the Board includes, of the eight arbitra-
tors, the current Secretary-Treasurer, three Past-Presidents and a President-
Elect of the Academy.
The staff of the Grievance Board currently consists of eight employees supplied
by the respective Agencies. Our staff serves an impressive range of functions. In
addition to guiding each case from original filing through final hearing, and
marshalling all necessary paperwork and records, they become intimately in-
volved with "sanitizing" all Opinions to conform with Privacy Act demands, so
that the Opinions may be distributed to all parties. This function is performed
in the interest of building a body of common law case precedent for the parties.
They also prepare Summaries of each Decision, to be released on an expedited
basis to the various agency house organs. Administrative support for the board-
quarters, compensation for Board members, supplies, travel costs, etc. is sup-
plied by the Department of State. Unlike the private sector counterparts, then,
the grievance machinery is cost free to the grievants.
At any time there are approximately thirty to forty cases at the Board at vari-
ous stages. In Calendar Year 1978, thirty-eight decisions were issued, twenty-
three involved hearings and fifteen were decided solely on written stipulations
of the parties. In several other cases, the parties were receptive to our overtures
as mediators, wherein we sought to arrive at a mutually-acceptable solution,
rather than issuing, judge-like, our decisions as arbitrators.
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Turning to the Grievance Chapter of the proposed legislation, some overall
comments are in order. I serve as the Umpire and arbitrator for a number of
federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, Labor Department,
Treasury Department, Community Services Administration, Justice Department,
and a number of others. I am also familiar, in general, with arbitration systems
in and out of the federal sector. My judgment, supported by my arbitrator col-
leagues on the Board, is that this is the single best federal sector system we have
seen. For the most part, the Act is well-structured and adequately responsive
to the needs of the parties. And, I have been most impressed both with the quality
of the presentations by the parties, as well as the responses by the Board.
Now to the draft legislation before you. In the main, the draft represents
reorganization of present legislation. Some new functions are assigned the
Board-the hearing of cases relative to selection out for cause, resolution of cer-
tain disputes between management and the employee organizations, for example.
I contemplate no significant problems in accommodating these new matters, al-
though the demands on the time of the arbitrators and, perhaps, more signifi-
cantly, on the staff, must always be monitored.
By virtue of its size and other inherent institutional impediments I think it un-
realistic to expect a governmental system in general, and this bargaining rela-
tionship in particular, composed as it is of five individual participants, to func-
tion with the ease and efficiency of a private sector relationship. But there are
modifications which would go a long way toward strengthening the potential
of this internal dispute resolution system.
Let me bring an interpretative problem to your attention. In a decision issued
some two years ago, we concluded that the Agency had erred in its interpretation
of a regulation which had resulted in depriving the grievant of a shipping al-
lowance. We ordered the Agency to reimburse the person. The Comptroller of
the Agency refused, contending the payment would have been illegal and would,
therefore have resulted in personal liability to that Comptroller. The Agency
desired to seek an opinion from the General Accounting Office. That created a
substantial dilemma. The Foreign Service Act reads as if the proper recourse
in appealing a Board decision is to a Federal District Court. And, this Board
was not created to serve as a trial forum for the GAO. At the same time, one can
understand the Agency's reticence to move, faced as it was with conflicting man-
dates. Clarification here is in order.
As you know, the Act provides that, in certain respects, our decisions are
binding. In other areas, we issue only recommendations. While I personally
believe that parties settle their own disputes more readily when the final step
is binding, I am not particularly troubled by the existence of recommendations,
inasmuch as the scope of that area subject to recommendations is reasonably
narrow, dealing, for the most part, with retroactive promotions. Moreover,
the legislation does require that when a recommendation is rejected, the Agency's
reason for so rejecting will be stated in writing. There are three grounds. One
can surely justify rejection of a recommendation based on national security
reasons or it it is contrary to law. But the third category refers to substantially
impairing the "Efficiency of the Service." If it is the Congressional intent to con-
fine management's discretion in these areas to cases of real and substantial con-
flicts presented by a Board decision-and the overall structure of the Act sug-
gests this-then this third category is, at the least, insufficiently precise. Our
experience has been that the Agency wishing to support the grievance system
will accept our recommendations if at all possible. But the Agency wishing to
undercut the system and to suppress grievances by employees will reject recom-
mendations whenever possible, citing this "Efficiency of the Service," sometimes
represented as "Morale of the Employees," or similar generalities which trans-
late into, "We're doing it because we want to." The system should be designed
to inform Agency heads that a rejection in this context may not be founded on
the mere premise that it would somehow disturb the business-as-usual routine.
I recommend deletion of this portion of the Act in its entirety.
A significant problem also exists with respect to Sections 692(1) (C) and (D)
of the present Act, giving "Former Officers" the right to grieve (1) denials of
allowances or financial benefits or (2) circumstances allegedly illegal or im-
proper in connection with certain employees' involuntary retirement. The pro-
vision is troublesome. Who is a "Former Officer"? Is it someone who is off the
rolls under any circumstances? Part D-the involuntary retirement provision-
refers only to employees separated six years before the passage of the Act. Does
this mean a current employee who is terminated may not file a grievance be-
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cause he or she is off the rolls? Reasonably, one would reject this Interpreta-
tion. The Agency should not be able to defend on the basis of an employee's
standing when the challenge is to the very action creating that standing.. But
what is reasonab'e in our view may not necessarily square with legislative intent.
An earlier draft of these changes appeared to have resolved the "Former
Officer" problem, much to my delight. I see, however, that the change has not
survived in the present draft, much to my disappointment. I would commend it
to your attention and urge a modification. It is a change which I cannot help but
believe would be welcomed by all parties concerned.
The other portion of this provision is also troublesome. What is a "financial
benefit"? Did Congress really intend a former officer to be able to grieve denial
of any money claim? Or was this intended to apply only to those continuing
federal benefits, such as pensions, for example, which would clearly have a
continuing impact on a former officer's -life? If this was the intent, and I sus-
pect it was, the Act should be amended to say so.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much. We appreciate the time
you have taken. Let me ask whether or not you think you have suf-
ficient independence from the Secretary of State?
Does he not control your budget and support personnel?
Mr. BLOCH. Yes, to the question of whether he controls the budget.
He does indeed. Arguably there could be a further influence exercised
by holding those financial reins.
.Our answer thus far is we are entirely satisfied with the relation-
ship. We have been troubled by appearances of conflict at times. This
has arisen in the question of the freedom of information. We are not
satisfied with the conclusion that the State Department will make all
decisions relevant to our Freedom of Information Act requests or
dealings because they are a party to these proceedings.
In terms of the finances and our relationship with them on a money
basis there has been no infringement whatsoever. We are deeply ap-
preciative of having been given full independence and we have never
had any problem in any context where there have been requests for
moneys or authorization for certain projects and so forth.
I hope that is due in some part to our internal responsibility and
watching that this thing does not run away in terms of budget.
We are wholly satisfied that there is no untoward influence in that
regard.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think you said you are satisfied there has not
been undue influence. Is that right?
Mr. BLOCII. That is correct.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Would you also testify you think under the cir-
cumstances there is no way there could be undue influence exerted?
Mr. BLOCH. Surely not. I think any time a financial structure exists
where one party or one side is paying the tab you have to be constantly
aware of the potential conflict.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think there is something about paying the fiddler
and calling the tune.
Mr. BLOCH. It is obviously a potential problem. We have had meet-
ings with the Secretary and have been given continuing assurances of
a hands off policy. Those assurances we would obviously monitor on a
case by case basis and on a daily basis.
We are convinced we are a totally independent group.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Can the Grievance Board order a disciplinary
action against a Foreign Service official for doing prohibited personnel
acts?
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Mr. BLocH. Was your question do we have the authority to order?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Do you have the authority to do that type of thing
if you find a Foreign Service officer doing something which has been
prohibited under personnel laws. What can you do about him or her?
Mr. BLOCH. This act is unique. It is the only time I have ever seen in
my experience as an arbitrator authority for the arbitration forum to
discipline. We do have that authority. It has not been exercised.
If you think of the realities of a given case it would be highly un-
likely that the situation would arise in anything other than the follow-
ing context; a grievant who came in and said "I was improperly
handled. Somebody wrote this comment in my OER or somebody did
this. I want the comment out. I want to be reimbursed for losses and I
also want the supervisor taken to task by you in one way or another."
We have had such requests. We have declined them at this point
because No. 1 we feel the proper remedy in such a case is to give the
person the relief they have requested assuming that is within our aegis
and second to keep our hands off of internal agency dealings with
the normal assumption in labor-management relations that the future
dealings of the parties are up to the parties.
We have not responded to such requests thus far and I must say I
personally would be hard pressed to ever think of a situation where
realistically we would do that. I do not rule it out but I say it would
be unique.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I only relate that case because of some incidents we
saw in the Postal Service which have been very difficult. Often the
supervisors then got promoted even though the grievance had been
filed and won. You begin to wonder what was going on.
Mr. BLOCH. I might say we too have seen that in private industry.
The only thing we can say to them informally is that just does not
make a lot of sense and you are hurting yourself terribly.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What about the budget of the grievance system?
What is your cost per case and how does it relate to the other Federal
and private sector grievance procedures which you have been involved
in?
Mr. BLOCH. I do not have the basis of comparing between this system
and others because this is the only system that I know the costs except
for my own fees which I would submit on a case by case basis.
My impression is in terms of a comparison, the representation costs
are somewhat similar. The representatives here are probably in a given
case paid considerably less than the high power attorney brought in
from a major law firm in some private sector case. Throughout the
Federal sector it is probably relatively equal.
The fees charged by the arbitrators are approximately one-half of .
what the going rate is in any of the agencies I have mentioned in my
written testimony. These arbitrators are paid on a GS-18 basis pro
rated out on a daily level. That comes to about one-half of the normal
fee charged elsewhere in the Government.
Let me clarify that. There are systems which specify a rate. For
example some areas of the Treasury Department have a fee schedule.
Most of the Federal agencies do not and they are simply whatever the
arbitrator's charges are.
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In terms of the overhead we have a nine-person staff. That is a
significant cost. The salaries range from about $15,000 to $16,000 to the
upper levels of in the $40,000 range for the executive secretary of our
Board. That cost is hard to translate. I do not know of an analogy
elsewhere in the Federal sector.
The Board and that staff is doing an enormous job including the
preparation of these opinions for distribution on a systematic basis and
the preparation of summaries for publication in the various agency
newspapers and in fact serving to shepherd each of these cases through
the whole grievance process.
In that context that portion of the overhead I would think is some-
what higher than other Federal sector agencies.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Let me just say from a purist standpoint I am a bit
troubled by statutory grievance systems versus negotiated grievance
systems. I understand what you are saying. You have to realize it
would be very shocking to have people involved in the current process
come in and say we have been doing all of this but we do not really like
the way we are doing it and we think it should all change.
I think you have made some very good points about changes that are
valid but traditionally that has been left for the employees, the people
who are going to use it to negotiate. I feel we are just a bit arrogant
sitting up here writing it down for people who are not at the table.
I just wondered what your feeling was.
Mr. BrooH. I do not disagree with any of that. I think the system
that makes the best sense is where the parties get together and say here
is what we want. The qualifications that are applicable to this system
are several.
That was tried for many years. Much to the dismay of all the
parties it simply was unsuccessful at which point Senator Bayh and
his committee stepped in and started the ball rolling to the point where
it was finally legislatively mandated.
I do not suggest that a legislative solution is the best. I think along
your lines that the internal negotiations are best. I would indicate that
you have five parties here. That is an enormous problem because to get
agreement between two is hard enough and to get any five people to
agree on anything is a task.
In that context the legislation I think was necessary and is working
well.
In the" revised bill you will note some of the labor relations will be
.accommodated through a contractual relationship. Others will be fun-
neled in the current setup through the statutory foundation.
I think it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that this Board has
one enormous job which is not seen in the private sector and that is
to interpret and imply not only a collective-bargaining agreement but
for example the U.S. Constitution and any relevant laws that might
appear in a given case. That is not the sort of thing which lends itself
readily to a negotiated labor agreement.
While I agree with you that would be the optimum I think practi-
cally this system is the only realistic answer.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Should the individual be able to control whether or
not the exclusive representative is present at the grievance hearing?
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Mr. BLOCH. Let me start by saying we do not think that is our busi-
ness. We will answer anybody's questions. We will take all comers. I
recognize from a personal level this question of exclusive representa-
tion that has existed.
I might say that the present draft I think handles it poorly. It talks
about exclusive representation when in fact there is not any.
As a general matter if the question is should an individual have ac-
cess to the grievance procedure and, of course, to final and binding ar-
bitration or final and sometimes binding as we have here, I guess it
would be nice to say yes, surely from a purely democratic viewpoint
you could hardly answer otherwise.
I speak now from my own viewpoint. It seems to me while that sys-
tem in the abstract would be ideal, you have to recognize the plight of
the agencies dealing with hundreds and hundreds of people all of
whom are going to have varying and very important grievances cer-
tainly at least in their minds.
The advantage of a so-called exclusive representation system is that
the union has at least the right to control the final access to the Board
and let me emphasize that distinction. There is no control by the
unions as to whether a grievance is filed. The question is does it get ap-
pealed all the way.
The tradeoff there is the ability of this dispute potentially to be
settled at the lower stages more readily. That is, the agency may talk to
a union and say one of your people has brought this, let's talk about it.
It is easier to do that on a continuing basis with the same faces than it
is with varying personalities.
One final point. I hope you recognize my remarks so far are intended
to be purely comments on pragmatism. We are concerned at the Board
with an effective internal dispute resolution system. If we have to an-
swer the question, of course, we will and we will. do it the best way we
can. We do not think that is the best way.
In line with what you said in terms of constructing the system, the
best way is for the parties to answer their problems. I think the ef-
ficient way in terms of what we have just been talking about is to have
representatives of these people doing the negotiating.
One final pragmatic point. I do not think in reality it is going to
make any difference because under the present draft as I read it you
have what in essense is a cosponsorship type thing. The grievance that
is brought to the particular union or brought through that union to
the extent they are upset with it or in some way unsupportive they
have the clear option to simply turn and say go ahead, we will not stop
you but we are going to help you, we will sit with you but go ahead
and get your own person.
I suspect that is exactly what is going to happen.
One final comment. Again with reference to this unique system we
are facing a situation where part of the problems which come before
us arise from the classic labor relations mold and indeed, under the new
statute, the even more traditional labor relations agreement. The other
part of it deals with these legal constitutional and inherent rights and
perhaps in that context a union should not be able in any context to
cut off the person's access to this Grievance Board. It might be worth-
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while for the committee to consider whether you wish a bifurcated
system in some of these legal or personal rights areas whereas more
control would be exercised over the traditional areas.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you very much.
Congressman Fascell?
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Bloch, I read your testimony and I have been
listening to you very carefully. As a person who knows absolutely
nothing about labor law and grievance processes I have the tendency
to be overwhelmed.
Are you for or against this grievance system?
Mr. BLOCH. Are you asking me as an arbitrator?
Mr. FASCELL. I am just asking you your personal opinion based on
years of experience and your expertise. Is this a good system or a bad
system?
Mr. BLOCH. This is a good system.
Mr. FASCELL. You said it was unique and you said it was the best
you ever came across in the Federal sector or anyplace else.
You like the private system better if the parties get together and
develop their own grievance system but that is not practical. Therefore
you are willing to live with the legislative grievance system.
Mr. BLOCH. I think that is accurate, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Fundamentally it is a good system and it is the best in
the Federal service and you are for it?
Mr. BLOCH. I support it unequivocally.
Mr. FASCELL. I just did not want to be confused.
I gather there is some question about who does what as a grievant. I
went back to read this law. We have not gotten that far in the bill yet
with the line by line explanation of it.
It says a grievant "who is a member of the bargaining unit, repre-
sented by an exclusive representative shall be represented at every
stage of the proceedings only if represented by that exclusive
representative."
It also says that such grievant has a right to present a grievance on
his or her own behalf. However, the exclusive representative shall have
the right to be present during the grievance proceedings.
That is both ends of the stick. I have been amused frankly about
this whole process concerning collective bargaining and the rights of
the individual being preserved at the same time that you bargain away
your individual rights and then try to protect your individual rights
by statute. It is a little bit unusual for me.
I -do not want to argue about it because I think maybe it has a good
principle.
What is wrong with that language?
Mr. BLOCH. From the Grievance Board's side of the table there is
nothing wrong at all. We take all comers. The dispute that arises does
arise in the context of whether the individual should be able to plow
his or her grievance through to a final and binding conclusion or
whether instead there should be any control, however limited, executed
by their collective bargaining representative.
Mr. FASCELL. I agree. If I am an individual and I pay my dues and
I voted to let that exclusive representative be my representative and
now I want to argue about my contract with that representative, is that
not an internal matter between me and my agent?
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Mr. BLOCH. Mr. Chairman, if I understand your question the answer
is yes.
Mr. FASCELL. I am not a member of the organization and therefore
I do not pay my dues and I did not trade anything off so to speak, yet
that organization becomes my exclusive agent. The statute says not-
withstanding that, since I am not a member of the organization, I can
go ahead. That is the way I read it. It says any grievant who is not a
member of such a bargaining unit has the right at every stage of the
proceedings to representation of the grievant's own choosing.
It seems to me the statute has given the best of both worlds to
everybody.
Mr. BLOCH. It may have. I read this as follows and I hope this is re-
sponsive to your question. The way I read the statute is when they talk
about being a member of a bargaining unit, I read that as saying being
a member of a group of people who are represented by this union and
not necessarily, sir, being a 'member of the union.
Mr. FASCELL. I agree with you. I think that is quite clear. I do not
think there is any argument about that.
Mr. BLocrr. If you are saying does not an individual trade away
some rights when they become members, some individual rights, the
answer is yes.
Mr. FASCELL. Right. I did not mean to raise that question. That was
a philosophical aside that I engage in sometimes when I am dealing.
You do not have any problem with that and you do not see any
reason to make any principal change or substantive change in this
language?
Mr. BLOCH. From the standpoint of the arbitrators we have no prob-
lem whatsoever with that.
Mr. FASCELL. Let's go to the next question : What is a former mem-
ber of the Foreign Service? I am not sure I understand yet what is a
member.
Mr. BLOCH. I think we are with you on that, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. What is a former member within the time limitations?
You raised the question what is a former member. Why do you not
tell me what a former member is and maybe we will redefine it?
Mr. BLOCH. The problem we have with the statute is it gives former
officers certain rights to grieve.
Mr. FASCELL. Is a member and officer the same thing?
Mr. BLOCH. Yes. I cannot think of any distinction. I am looking at
section 1102. It says within certain time limits a former member of the
Service and I define that as former officer may present certain griev-
ances. It says with respect to allegations described in paragraph 7 of
1101(a).
Paragraph 7 talks about the alleged denial of an allowance or a
premium pay or other financial benefit. That is the incorporated refer-
ence there. It does not say for example that the former officer may
grieve his or her termination or his or her selection out if you will.
The horror case that I would give you just for your consideration
with full recognition that this
Mr. FASCELL. Before you get to the worst case scenario, what you are
saying is that under the regular language covering a member who has
been or will be selected out, he has no right to pursue the matter once
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he has been selected out because he then becomes a former member and
as a former member his grievance is limited?
Mr. BLOCH. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. I don't know where the principal language of the
procedure is in this bill.
Mr. BLOCH. If that is a gap it ought not to be a gap obviously.
Mr. FASCELL. It would certainly be unintended because obviously
the protection of the individual in terms of questioning his rights as
to his termination would be totally finessed.
Mr. BLOCH. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. I am not sure it ought to be in the former member cate-
gory. I am not ready to say to that person who is still in the admin-
istrative process on the determination of his status that he is really
a former member. I do not know at what point that transpires. I will
have to be very careful to go back and determine at what point a legal
distinction will be made.
I am perfectly willing to say I would give consideration to the limi-
tation of grievances to a former member as laid out in 1102 without
raising the other question. I would rather go back in the main section
and take care of that distinction so as not to finess out a member whose
current case is being considered.
Mr. BLOCH. Just to indicate one of the precise natures of the prob-
lem, this statute gives a 3-year time period within which grievances
may be filed. If you read the language that we have been talking about
strictly, an officer certainly could grieve the agency's decision to sepa-
rate him or her but it would have to be while he or she were still on the
rolls.
We do not think Congress intended in the other act and we hope it
does not intend in this one to give that sort of a person 30 days as-
suming they get 30 days' notice or whatever while giving someone
else 3 years to grieve a $5 allowance that they have been gypped out
of.
That is one of the areas of concern. We think it deserves consider-
ation.
Mr. FASOELL. Thank you very much for clarifying that for me.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Congressman Gray.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you very much.
Mr. Bloch, in your opinion does the proposed legislation adequately
provide for entrance and mobility and full utilization of women
and minorities?
Mr. BLOCH. Congressman, I think I am going to have to plead no
contest on the question. I do not know the answer to it. In terms of the
grievance system per se we have been proscribed from handling mat-
ters for which there is another, statutory path such as EEO type
matters.
We have nevertheless considered grievances that have raised those
awful aspects under other names such as I am not claiming that you
discriminated against me because I am black but you discriminated
against me because you did not like me for whatever reason. All of a
sudden they have access to our system.
Responding solely with respect to the grievance system my answer
is we feel it is a satisfactory one in terms of the traditional labor-man-
agement function. Beyond that I do not know.
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Mr. GRAY. Do you often get a lot of grievances or what number of
grievances can you tell us about that are based upon discrimination be-
cause of ethnicity or because of sex?
Mr. BLOCH. I do not know if we have a number. I can give you a
guess. It is difficult to give you an exact answer. I am going to guess
that 5 to 10 percent of our cases have such a claim that surfaces but
recognizing it may well be a case where a person has been poorly
treated and who says I am not sure why I was poorly treated but I note
that I am a woman or black or whatever and it comes up there.
It is beyond our jurisdiction to handle a case which is purely of
an EEO matter and for which other statutory avenues exist.
Mr. GRAY. The proposed act does not mention EEO nor affirmative
action. The Grievance Board is mentioned rather specifically.
Do you believe there is no need for an EEO operation and is your
Board able and willing to assume the responsibilities of administering
EEO?
Mr. BLOCH. Let me respond in two ways. The first.is from the per-
sonnel on the Board and there is no question that our Board is capable
of handling those types of grievances. They arise normally in the
private sector certainly. It is something we confront every day either
because nondiscrimination clauses have been expressly written into
the collective bargaining agreements that we are empowered to in-
terpret and administer or because the contracts have a savings clause
which says anything illegal is also violative of the contract.
I have no qualms about that from the personnel standpoint.
Similarly I have no qualms in the ability of our grievance ma-
chinery to accommodate and I am going to say most of what one
would term an EEO related matter. My only qualification would come
if some of these EEO matters, which do surface occasionally in the
private sector, all of a sudden came before the Board such as very in-
tricate and extended questions of testing; for example, where there is
long and difficult expert testimony necessary.
As to that I have no doubts that we could accommodate that sort of
it dispute but I have some doubts as to whether the parties are ready
to present that sort of a case in the normal course of business. I can-
not tell you that that sort of a case would be handled as well as the
parties now handle their normal chain of disputes. I also think that
would be a highly unique situation.
Mr. GRAY. Your Grievance Board does not act at this current time
in any way in an EEO capacity but you are saying they do have the
capability?
Mr. BLOCH. Yes. Technically we are currently proscribed from do-
ing so but there is no reason from a structural standpoint why we could
not either from the staff or the arbitrators.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you. We thank you for being with us this
morning. We appreciate the help you have been to the committee.
Thank you very much.
Mr. BLOCS--r. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. The next witness is Mr. Jim Washington who is
the president of the Thursday Luncheon Group.
We welcome you. Mr. Washington, if you would like to come up to
the front table we are very happy to have you with us.
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STATEMENT OF JAMES R. WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT, THURSDAY
LUNCHEON GROUP
Mr. WASHINGTON. Madam Chairwoman, I wonder since I am not
familiar with the proceedings, how much time do we'have?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. We are in real trouble this morning for time as
you can tell. The briefer your opening statement is, the sooner we can
get to questions.
If you would like to introduce the people with you that will be fine.
Mr. WASHINGTON. On my left is Dr. James Singletary, Foreign
Service officer, from AID. On my right is Elizabeth McKune who is
a Foreign Service officer from the State Department. and on my far
right is Dave Smith who is vice president of TLG and FSO from
ICA. In the interest of time I will attempt to summarize our testi-
mony and will leave with you a copy of our complete text, with ap-
pendixes, to be recorded in its entirety.
May I extend on behalf of the Thursday Luncheon Group to this
committee our appreciation for affording us the opportunity to testify
on the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979.
The Thursday Luncheon Group's desire to make its voice heard
before this committee relates directly to the very purpose of the group
which was founded in 1973 as an informal gathering of. blacks in the
Foreign Affairs community.
We welcome this opportunity from a point of view of wanting to
relate to this committee some of our concerns relative to the bill and
in that connection we welcome this opportunity to talk to and testify
before the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Act of 1979.
We view with grave reservations this proposed Foreign Service
Act as presently worded because of our concerns regarding racial dis-
crimination and what we believe to be serious shortcomings and omis-
sions in the bill that, if passed, could potentially be injurious to the
recruitment and advancement opportunities of minorities in the
Foreign Affairs agencies and in effect distract from the overall pur-
pose of the bill which is to develop and strengthen the Foreign Serv-
ice representative of the United States and enable it to effectively
serve the interests of the country.
We have presented some statistics covering the overall number of
blacks within the three Foreign Affairs agencies. We also presented
a breakout of the three agencies relative to the total blacks in con-
nection with the total population of the three agencies.
We talked about some breakout of the relative positions of blacks
in three different groups in order to give a picture of how we fare
relative to group 1 and group 3 with group 1 being the high echelon
of grade and salary within the agencies.
The statistics on minorities in the Foreign Service on Foreign Serv-
ice Reserve, Foreign Reserve Unlimited, Foreign Service Staff and
Civil Service reflect equally absence of minorities in all levels of em-
ployment in the Department of State, AID, and ICA.
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Most importantly they reveal a lack of advancement opportunity
for minority career officers already in the Service. These statistics
reveal the past failure of the Foreign Affairs agencies to pursue
vifimo'rous affirmative action programs.
of only does this bill not provide teeth for the EEO on existing
laws and regulations nor stipulate punishment for violation of the
laws, but it does not even mention affirmative action.
Under the bill the Foreign Affairs agencies' offices cannot establish
a program for compliance consistent with title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 as amended.
One of the basic reasons for the failure of affirmative action in the
Foreign Affairs agencies today is the absence of penalties for the vio-
lation of EEO principles. Without enforcement there is little reason
for those who practice racial discrimination to take seriously the ex-
isting EEO program in the Department of State, ICA, and AID.
An enforcement program should also provide incentives of recogni-
tion to those demonstrating superior accomplishment in equal employ-
ment opportunity. Unless appropriate legislation is adopted in this
bill to specifically address racial discrimination at its source within
the Department of State, ICA, and AID, discrimination will continue
unabated and no affirmative action program will ever succeed.
We presented as appendices copies of two reports commissioned by
the State Department. We believe these reports will bear out our asser-
tion that there is widespread discrimination within the Department.
The report leaves little doubt there is widespread opposition to equal
opportunity among the majority of State Department employees. This
opposition to EEO ranges from attitudes expressing the belief that
special programs would bring about unfair advantages to minorities
and women.
It goes on to a more subtle approach to discrimination in the system
in the assignment and preparation of performance rating reports for
minorities.
We ask that the findings of these reports be closely examined by this
committee before acting on this bill.
May I state here that some of these recommendations have already
been adopted by the Department and we recognize the wholehearted
commitment of Secretary Vance to affirmative action. However, as this
bill will have a tremendous impact on minorities for decades to come,
we seek congressional support to strengthen the language of the bill
to assure the Department's commitment to EEO is made explicit in
its basic authority.
We believe that the absence of a statutory basis in this bill for EEO
and provisions for compliance will almost surely guarantee the con-
tinned underrepresentation of minorities in the Department of State,
TCA, and AID.
In our desire to strengthen this bill we draw the committee's atten-
tion to two sections.
Section 101(b) (2). We believe this section would be of crucial im-
portance to the future of minorities in the Foreign Affairs agencies
because it is the basic authority for which the Department will formu-
late policies and procedures for its affirmative action programs.
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We believe that the present language in section 101(b) (2) is wholly
inadequate to carry out the spirit and intent of existing Federal laws,
Executive orders, court decisions, and, in particular, title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding affirmative action programs.
We ask the committee how this section of the proposed Foreign
Service Act, in its present language, can achieve equal opportunity
goals if it becomes the basic authority of the Department of State
when the Department although required by specific laws has demon-
strated dismal performance in establishing, maintaining, and carrying
out continuing affirmative action programs designed to promote equal
opportunity?
In addition to our proposal that section 101(b) (2) be strengthened
we further propose that 206 be rewritten so the Board of the Foreign
Service include a representative of the Equal Employment Oppor-
tunity Commission to insure that matters relating to affirmative action
programs of the three agencies and other agencies affected by this act
adhere to the letter and spirit of EEO laws and regulations.
In addition we propose that the membership of the Board of Foreign
Service examiners require membership of an EEO officer. We believe
that the establishment of these EEO functions would enable equal
opportunity offices to assert greater influence in helping the Depart-
ment establish a vigorous and effective program of affirmative actions
to eliminate racial discrimination.
One need only recall over the last decade the growing opposition
to the United States in the United Nations and other international
fora to understand the country's increasing estrangement from coun-
tries which constitute three-fourths of the nations of the world.
Within another generation, shortly after we pass the threshold of
the 21st century, the world's population will have doubled. Four-
fifths of this rapid growth, demographers tell us, will appear among
the dark-skinned people of the equatorial countries of this Earth.
We, in the Thursday Luncheon Group, seek a proper emphasis on
affirmative action in the Foreign Service Act of 1979 for more than
our personal or private advancement and for more than just a sense
of justice overdue.
Perhaps our most important reason stems from our conviction that
black Americans coming out of an American--heritage of nearly 500
years of social and economic oppression have a special or a unique
contribution to make to the formulation and conduct and support of
U.S. foreign policy.
We know we have the capacity and we insist on having the oppor-
tunity to serve as the bridge between our great Nation and the devel-
oping parts of the world from which we lately find ourselves so
frequently estranged. It is tragic for our country to go on dissipating
this considerable human resource for reasons of perceived elitism.
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Ambassador Young during his brief period of service at the United
Nations not only understood the underlying reasons for the growing
hostility toward the United States but was able by identifying with
the aspirations of developing nations to open a new and much more
productive chapter in America's relations with the Third World.
Given the history of racial discrimination within the Foreign Af-
fairs agencies it is hardly surprising that the Foreign Affairs agencies'
efforts in behalf of equal advancement opportunity continue to lag
behind those of other Federal agencies and indeed behind the Foreign
Affairs agencies' objectives.
The social, economic, and sometimes political problems which result
from having about 4 percent black employment at the highest levels
within the Foreign Affairs agencies and nearly 32 percent at the lowest
levels-are worsening instead of improving.
Strong support for affirmative action is urgently required to en-
gender black confidence in the capacities of the Foreign Affairs agen-
cies to assure equal employment and fair and equitable treatment for
blacks and other minorities within the Foreign Affairs community.
I appreciate the time and patience of the committee today to con-
sider our views on the black employment situation within the Foreign
Affairs community. We hope the committee will consider favorably
our views, particularly those concerning sections 101(b) (2) and
section 206.
We stand ready to cooperate with members of your staff to further
develop the language for these sections.
[Mr. Washington's prepared statement follows :1
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES R. WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE
THURSDAY LUNCHEON GROUP (STATE, AID, ICA)
Chairs and Members of the Committee, may I extend the appreciation of the
Thursday Luncheon Group (TLG) to these Committees for affording us the
opportunity to testify on the proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979. The Thursday
Luncheon Group's desire to make its voice heard before these Committees relates
directly to the very purpose of this group, which was founded in 1973 as an
informal gathering of Black employees in the Foreign Affairs community.
Since its inception in 1973, the Thursday Luncheon Group (TLG) has gradu-
ally broadened its efforts to promote the interests of Blacks within the principal
foreign affairs agencies of the U.S. Government. Such efforts now include the
monitoring of employment, promotions, counseling, assignments, training, and
other personnel matters in State, AID and ICA and the presentation of policy
recommendations to agency heads on issues of special concern to TLG members.
In that connection TLG welcomes this opportunity to testify before this hearing
on the Foreign Service Act of 1979.
We view with grave reservations this proposed Foreign Service Act as pres-
ently worded because of our concern regarding racial discrimination and what
we believe to be serious shortcomings and omissions in this bill that, if passed
in its present language, can be potentially injurious to the recruitment and
advancement opportunities of minorities in the Foreign Affairs Agencies (FAAs)
and in effect, distract from the overall purpose of the bill which is to develop
and strengthen a Foreign Service representative of the United States and to
enable it to effectively serve the interests of the country.
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Let us briefly examine the Foreign Affairs Agencies' Profiles :
State-------------------------------- 1,709
430
25
1,279 75
AID--------------------------------- 754
142
19
612 81
ICA--------------------------------- 726
158
22
568 78
Total: AID/State/ICA---.--------
State employees (GS and FS),
distribution by grade
groups (February 1979):'
Total employees--------
T
3,802
----------
3,678 ----- -_---
5,313
----------
12,793 ---.------
otal black employees_--
AID employees (GS and FS),
distribution by grade
groups (Dec. 16, 1978):'
120
3.2
451 12.3
1, 138
21.4
1, 709 13.4
Total employees--------
1,962
----------
770 ----------
955
----------
3,687 ----------
Total black employees.--
ICA employees (GS and FS),
distribution by grade
groups (Mar. 31, 1979):'
107
5.45
192 24.9
455
47.6
754 20.5
Total employees--------
1,566
------ -..-
1,294 ..... --_--
1,025
----------
3,885 ....--...-
Total black employees---
64
4.1
173 13.4
489
47.7
726 18.7
Grade groups include the following:
Group I GS-13 through 18, FSO/R L/l0 1 through 4, FSS-01 and 02).
Group 2 (GS-9 through 12, FSO/R/L/10 05 and 06, FSS-03 through 05).
Group 3 (GS-01 through 08, FSO/R/L/10 07 through 08, FSS-06 through 10).
NOTES
State:
1. Of the total population in the Department of State, approximately 5 percent of the Foreign Service employees
are black and more than 35 percent of the general schedule employees are blacks.
2. Of the general schedule and Foreign Service employees in grade group 1 only 3.2 percent are black.
3. Of the general schedule employees, approximately 31 percent of those in group 3 are blacks as opposed to only
8 percent in group 1.
AID:
1. Of the total number of blacks in AID, there is a disproportionate percentage concentrated in the lower ranks of
the general schedule employees (group 2, 25 percent and group 3, 48 percent).
2. Blacks only comprise approximately 5 percent of the total number of employees in group I while blacks repre-
sent approximately 20 percent of AID employees.
3. Of the total number of Foreign Service employees, only 5 percent are black (4 percent black men and 1 percent
black women).
ICA:
1. Within ICA, only 4 percent of the blacks fall into grade group 1 and 48 percent of the employees in grade group 3
are black.
2. Blacks comprise approximately 5 percent of the total Foreign Service population and 35 percent of the general sched-
ul. employees. However, blacks represent only 3 percent of the general schedule employees in grade group l and 45
percent of those in grade group 3.
3. Black women comprise less than 1 percent of those in grade group 1 and black men only represent slightly over
2 percent in this group.
The statistics on minorities in the Foreign Service Reserve, Foreign Service
Reserve Unlimited, Foreign Service Staff and Civil Service reflect equally the
absence of minorities in all levels of employment in the Department of State, ICA
and AID. (Appendix A-State, Appendix B-AID, and Appendix C-ICA-
Statistics on Minority Employees detailing low-level minority representation in
the foreign affairs agencies, are retained in the subcommittee files.)
Most importantly, they reveal the lack of advancement opportunity for minority
career officers already in the service. These statistics reveal the past failure of
the FAAs to pursue a vigorous affirmative action program. They provide little
encouragement to minority employees. The proposed Foreign Service Act of 1979,
which does not even refer to affirmative action, will not change conditions within
the FAAs for Blacks.
Not only does this present bill not provide teeth for existing EEO laws and
regulations, nor stipulate punishment for violation of the law, it does not even
mention affirmative action. Under the bill the FAAs EEO offices cannot establish
a program for compliance consistent with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, as amended.
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One of the basic reasons for the failure of affirmative action in the FAAs to-
day is the absence of penalties for the violation of EEO principles. Without en-
forcement there is little reason for those who practice racial discrimination to
take seriously the existing EEO program in the Department of State, ICA and
AID. An enforcement program should also provide incentives of recognition to
those demonstrating superior accomplishment in equal employment opportunity.
Unless appropriate legislation is adopted in this bill to specifically address racial
discrimination at its source within the Department of State, ICA and AID,
discrimination will continue unabated and no affirmative action program will
ever succeed.
We believe that a recent study commissioned by the Department of State
evaluating equal opportunity (See Appendix D, Evaluation of the EEO Program,
U.S. Department of State. June 1977) substantiates this assertion. An examina-
tion of that report clearly reveals the dire need for a statutory basis in the basic
authority of the Department of State, and spelled out in the legislative history
of the bill, to assist the Department in its efforts to achieve the goal of a broadly
representative Foreign Service truly representative of the diversity of the Ameri-
can people.
The report indicates, for one thing, that the majority of employees interviewed-
at all levels of the organization-perceive equal opportunity as practiced in the
Department of State as being practiced for the image it creates or because the
law allows no option * * * that equal opportunity has little or no influence on the
issues important to equal opportunity, such as recruitment, hiring, counseling,
training, assignment, and promotions * * * EEO at posts abroad is relatively
unimportant. If practiced it is because particular individuals who manage a post
simply practice good management.
The report also levels little doubt that there is widespread opposition to equal
opportunity among the majority of State Department employees. This opposition
to EEO ranges from attitudes expressing the belief that special programs would
bring unfair advantages to minorities and women, to the subtle discrimination of
the "system" in assignments and the preparation of performance rating reports
for minorities.
As indicated in a similar report commissioned by the Department of State
on minority Junior Officers (See Appendix E-Minority Junior Officers Hiring
Program of the Department of State, February 1977) the majority of minorities
who enter the service under the affirmative action program are assigned to
administrative and consular duties as opposed to economic or political duties.
According to the report, a considerable number of minority employees consider
race to be relevant in the preparation of their performance evaluations in a
negative way.
We ask that the findings of these reports be closely examined by this com-
mittee before acting on this bill. May I here state that some of their recom-
mendations have already been adopted by the Department of State and we
recognize the wholehearted commitment of Secretary Vance to affirmative action.
However, as this bill will have a. tremendous impact on minorities for decades
to come, we seek Congressional support to strengthen the language of the Bill
to assure that the Department's commitment to EEO is made explicit in its basic
authority. We believe that absence of a statutory basis in this bill for EEO and
provisions for compliance will almost surely guarantee the continued under-
representation of minorities in the Department, ICA and AID.
In our desire to strengthen this bill we draw the committee's attention to:
1. Section 101(b) (2). We believe that this section will be of crucial importance
to the future of minorities in the Foreign Service because it is the basic an-
thority from which the Department of State will formulate policies and pro-
cedures for its Affirmative Action program. We believe that in its present
language Section 101(b) (2) is wholly inadequate to carry out the spirit and
intent of existing Federal Laws, Executive Orders, and court decisions, and
in particular Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended regarding
affirmative action programs. We believe that the absence of specific reference
to affirmative action in this section, and its present discretionary language
merely "to foster" equal opportunity, will not ensure that the Department of
State will vigorously pursue an affirmative action program and adopt enforce-
able policies to eliminate pervasive and systematic discrimination wherever
it is found to exist within the Department of State, ICA and AID.
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We ask the committee how this section of the proposed Foreign Service Act,
in its present language, can achieve equal opportunity goals if it becomes the
basic authority of the Department of State, when the Department of State,
though required by explicit existing law, has demonstrated a dismal perform-
ance in establishing, maintaining, and carrying out a continuing affirmative
action program designed to promote equal opportunity in every aspect of agency
personnel policy and practice in the employment, development, advancement and
treatment of employees.
2. In addition to our proposal that Section 101(b) (2) be strengthened to
establish a statutory basis for EEO, we further propose that Section 206 be
rewritten so that the Board of the Foreign Service include a representative
of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to ensure that
matters relating to affirmative action programs of the Department of State,
ICA, AID and other agencies affected by this Act adhere to the letter and
spirit of EEO laws and regulations.
3. In addition, we propose that membership of the Board of Foreign Service
Examiners require membership of an LEEOC Officer. We believe that the estab-
lishment of these EEO functions would enable Equal Opportunity offices to assert
greater influence in helping the Department establish a vigorous and effective
program of affirmative action to eliminate racial discrimination.
We of the Thursday Luncheon Group believe that the elimination of dis-
crimination by strengthening this bill will have an impact far beyond improving
the status of minorities. Those individual employees who practice racial dis-
crimination at home undoubtedly take these prejudicial attitudes to our em-
bassies abroad, to countries that are highly sensitive to racial discrimination.
Can we seriously doubt that part of the antipathy of other countries toward
the United States and its interests can be traced directly or in part to those
Foreign Service officials who indulge their racial prejudices while serving abroad
in the interests of the United States? Are we to believe that those who indulge in
racial discrimination can conceal their racial attitudes when they are dealing
with an African diplomat instead of an American employee of African descent,
or a Mexican diplomat instead of an American colleague of Mexican descent?
No.
Racial discrimination within the Department and the Foreign Service is a
luxury that our government and nation can ill afford as we attempt to promote
the interests and influence of the United States in an increasingly hostile world
* * * a world with which the United States must come to grips.
One need only to recall over the last decade the growing opposition to the
United States in the United Nations and other international fora to understand
our country's increasing estrangement from countries which constitute three
fourths of the nations of the world. Within another generation, shortly after
we pass the threshold of the 21st Century, the world's population will have
doubled. Four fifths of this rapid growth, demographers tell us, will appear
among the dark-skinned people of the equatorial countries of this earth.
We, in the Thursday Luncheon Group, seek a proper emphasis on affirmative
action in the Foreign Service Act of 1979 for more than our personal or private
advancement, and for more than just a sense of justice overdue. Perhaps our
most important reason stems from our conviction that Black Americans, coming
out of an American heritage of nearly five hundred years of social and economic
oppression, have a special-a unique-contribution to make to the formulation.
promulgation, conduct and support of U.S. foreign policy. We know we have the
capacity, and we insist on having the opportunity, to serve as the bridge between
our great Nation and the developing parts of the world from which we lately
find ourselves so frequently estranged. It is tragic for our country to go on dis-
sipating this considerable human resource for reasons of perceived elitism.
Former Ambassador Young, during his brief period of service at the United
Nations, not only understood the underlying reasons for the growing hostility
toward the United States, but was able, by identifying with the aspirations of
developing nations, to open a new and much more productive chapter in Amer-
ica's relations with the Third World.
Given the history of racial discrimination within the FAAs it is hardly sur-
prising that the FAA's efforts in behalf of equal advancement opportunity con-
tinue to lag behind those of other Federal agencies and indeed behind the FAA's
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own objectives. The social, economic and sometimes political problems which re-
sult from having about 4.3 percent Black employment at the highest levels within
the FAAs and nearly 32.2 percent at the lowest levels are worsening. Strong sup-
port for affirmative action is urgently required to engender Black confidence in
the capacities of the FAAs to assure equal employment and fair and equitable
treatment for Blacks and other minorities within the foreign affairs community.
CONCLUSION
I appreciate the time and patience of the Committees today to consider our
views on the Black employment situation within the foreign affairs community.
We hope that the Committees will consider favorably our views particularly
those concerning sections 101(b) (2) and 206. We stand ready to cooperate with
your staffs to further develop appropriate language for these sections. In con-
clusion, I thank you once again.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Washington, that is well timed. We are going to
have to adjourn for a vote. I commend you on all the statistics you
have. We will vote and I will try to get back as soon as I can. Mr.
Gray will be back and will have. a lot of questions.
I think you have a very sympathetic audience. One of the things we
would like you to think about while we are gone is the selection boards
and how they affect black and minority promotions. I think that has
been a real problem also along with the other comments you have
made.
We will return as soon as we can.
[The subcommittees recessed for a vote on the floor at 11:55 a.m.]
Mr. FASCELL. The subcommittee will resume.
I apologize to the panel for being absent but I was before the Rules
Committee. I got back as soon as I could.
Mr. Gray.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Washington, what is the Thursday Luncheon Group? Could
you explain what it is and how it came to be?
Mr. WASHINGTON. The Thursday Luncheon Group consists.of mem-
bers of blacks within the three Foreign Affairs agencies as direct
members. We have affiliate membership in other Government agencies
involved with international activities or international relations.
The three agencies where our direct membership lies are in the
State Department, AID, and ICA. Our affiliates are certain members
of the Treasury Denartment; ACTION, Peace Corps and other
agencies such as HEW that have international involvements.
We are comprised of approximately 3,000 potential members in the
principal Foreign Affairs agencies. Our active membership runs pretty
much around 300 to 325 given a particular year.
Our main purpose as indicated earlier is to foster improvement of
blacks in positions and improvement of our inputs into our Foreign
Affairs activities including employment, promotions, counseling, as-
signments, training, and other personnel matters.
We, also, from time to time make presentations of policy recom-
mendations to heads of agencies on issues of special interest to blacks
within the Foreign Affairs agencies.
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Mr. GRAY. In your testimony I think you make it very clear that
you are not very satisfied with the proposed reform, particularly as it
applies to minorities and also women. You talk about changing sec-
tions 101(b) (2) and 206.
How would you implement that? Do you have at this time some
specific suggestions on how to give that a strong thrust of affirmative
action?
Mr. WASHINGTON. Without providing the specific language we made
three suggestions; one of which deals with incorporating appropriate
language contained in Federal laws. -Executive orders and court deci-
sions and particularly the language couched in title VII of the Civil
Rights Act regarding affirmative action.
A problem with that section is it does not even mention affirmative
action. We would like to see that language pertaining to affirmative
action be placed in section 101(b) (2). We are asking that section 206
include provision for a member of the EEOC to be placed on the Board
of Foreign Service and that the Board of Examiners insure that the
activities of these Boards reflect the intent of EEO laws.
Mr. GRAY. Do you have those specific requirements in writing with
you today?
Mr. WASHINGTON. No, we do not.
Mr. GRAY. I would appreciate it if you could get that to me for
further examination.
You state in your testimony that discrimination does take place.
What form does that take and how does it apply to minorities and
women to avoid entrance and mobility within the Service and the
Department? Can you give me any specific examples or kinds of il-
lustrations as to how there is the discrimination you mentioned?
Mr. WASHINGTON. Yes; I have with me today other members of the
Thursday Luncheon Group. Dave Smith is on the Board of Exami-
ners. He is very much involved with the selection process in the assess-
ment area. I would defer to Dave to comment very briefly on what we
mean by discrimination and how discrimination impacts on minori-
ties' advancement within the Foreign Affairs agencies.
Mr. GRAY. Mr. Smith?
STATEMENT OF DAVID SMITH, VICE PRESIDENT, THURSDAY
LUNCHEON GROUP
Mr. SmrrH. Thank you very much, Congressman Gray.
The Foreign Service of the TTnited States is extremely hierarchical
or pyramidal kind of group. What happens at the top because of that
I think has unusual impact on what happens below. The story of dis-
crimination in the Foreign Service it seems to me is one of too few
particularly at the top peaks of these pyramids.
For example, and this ties in with the question raised about selec-
tion boards, there are a number of kinds of selection boards in the
Foreign Service. There are promotion panels which are the normal
reference people have in mind when they talk about selection boards.
There are commissioning and tenure boards which pass on junior of-
ficers before they move from reserve status to career officers. There is
the Board of Examiners.
In each of these cases people are passed upon by their seniors. In-
sofar as blacks and other minorities are woefully underrepresented at
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these apexes they do not assert a proportionate influence upon the out-
come of these various panels I have suggested.
To put it differently there are two few grade 1, grade 2, and grade
3 officers. Therefore minority officers who are bunched at the bottom
are not subjected to as sympathetic an ear as they should have. This
lack of representation at the middle and upper ranks of the Foreign
Service inhibits the kinds of assignments and the kinds of overseas
postings, special assignments, special training opportunities which
come to blacks.
This is why we say discrimination is almost built into the system
and cannot be righted in our opinion of the Thursday Luncheon Group
until there is increased representation particularly at the middle and
upper levels of the Foreign Service.
Mr. GRAY. Often the argument is used that the reason why there is
not the increased representation at the top is that it takes time to work
one's way up the ladder to gain the experience necessary and there is
always the admission requirements and the various testing.
Do you find as a result of past admission procedures and also about
the present admission procedures at the lowest rung that this pre-
sents a problem for minorities and women and not just blacks but
Hispanics and native Americans and Asian Americans reaching that
a
top
SMITH. Let me address the question first about being prepared
to move ahead. Throughout this act there is emphasis given to the
value of having a young, vibrant, vigorous Foreign Service Corps. The
Foreign Service, I think, is structured to permit that.
There are no stipulations requiring a minimum time in grade. There
are stipulations requiring a maximum time in grade beyond which one
is subject to being selected out of the Service.
Young officers can be moved in the Service as rapidly as senior offi-
cers see fit to move them. Our point is senior officers hardly ever see
fit. They certainly do not see fit as often as they should to move young
black officers or young minority officers to positions of responsibility
early enough in their careers.
Mr. GRAY. Are they guided by any criteria or are you simply saying
it is a totally arbitrary, subjective decision made by a Board and based
on what you are saying minorities and women are not. represented on
that Board adequately enough and therefore there are no guidelines on
how that Board decides who gets promoted or simply a subjective
arbitrary thing?
Mr. SMITH.. It is not entirely arbitrary although there is room for
that and I think some of that happens.
To take the selection panels for an example, there are very few mi-
norities in the positions to serve on boards that will select who will be
promoted.
We think that. can be gotten around by making use of minority offi-
cers who have retired from the Foreign Service and understand the
system and how it works and having them serve on the selection panels
and by making broader use of minorities from outside the Foreign
Service to serve on such panels.
I suggested to you that it is not entirely arbitrary because indeed
the promotion panels have precepts set for them by an agreement basis
between the management of the Department and the exclusive bargain-
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ing agent. We find again little opportunity to have a voice in what the
precepts are.
Once people are selected and one moves to the area of counseling and
assignment there is indeed a good deal of room for play. The Depart-
ment has very few, and when I say the Department I mean it is gen-
erally true of the Foreign Affairs agencies, that they have very few
minorities in positions of counseling positions or with the authority
to make assignment decisions.
Very few are at the upper ranks to select people whom they identify
as, although young, being capable of taking on greatly increased
responsibility.
I want to say a word about the examination process for junior officers
which as you may know is undergoing at the present time another in
a whole series of reexamination and reevaluations as to its efficacy
and as to its impact on minorities.
The Department and other elements have affirmative action pro-
grams for employment. We know that the examination process as
presently constituted simply does not produce the numbers of minor-
ities to adequately fill the goals that have been set, the numerical ob-
jectives of the Department.
Part of that has to do with what I think are the ill organized minor-
ity recruitment efforts and a part of it has to do with various elements
in the examination process, some of which in my opinion are clearly
predisposed against minorities.
To take one example, it has been recently reported and I think gen-
erally now believed that preparation for written examinations and
preparation courses for written examinations such as the one given for
the Foreign Service and produced incidently by the same organiza-
tion, the Educational Testing Service in Princeton which produces the
SAT and other such exams, that test preparation can and does have an
impact on success in those examinations.
Clearly people who are economically underprivileged are going to
be disadvantaged in taking such a test as opposed to those whose eco-
nomic circumstances allow them to better prepare for it. That is just
one element which I suggest works against a successful improvement
in minority proportions in the Foreign Service.
Mr. GRAY. I noticed in earlier testimony here before the committee
when we were looking at the admission procedures and also the testing
that a great deal of weight was given to that written examination.
You are saying there are also some economic considerations that
make it very difficult for minorities to do well. on that. Are you also
saying there are just some basic cultural factors that have been used
to criticize the standardized testing program out of Princeton for col-
lege boards as well?
Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. I work on some of the test questions from
time to time at least from a. review point of view. They are predis-
positioned against minorities.
Mr. GRAY. Do you feel those questions have a significant amount of
relevance to the actual performance of a person once they are in the
Foreign Service?
Mr. SMITH. I do not think the written examination questions have
particularly. I think other parts of the examination process are more
relevant.
Mr. GRAY. Such as?
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Mr. SMITH. The oral examination both in the assessment center form,
the form that is being used now and what we call the old form, the three
on one examination where there is more exploration for the charac-
teristics which gat least the psychologist tells us are typical of a success-
ful Foreign Service officer.
Mr. Grtny. Mr. Washington or a member of the group, why do you
think the proposed legislation calls for a separate statutory labor rela-
tions law? Do you have any comment?
Mr. WASHINGTON. Yes; let me comment very briefly.
We did not comment in our testimony on that particular section of
the bill. We do have some problem with certain of the items in that
section but we choose not to 'bring it to this body. We think some of
the things we would like to change in that section would have to do
with our relationship with the exclusive representative as opposed to
legislation.
Personally, I think we have sufficient coverage under title VII Fed-
eral Labor Relations Authority and ordinarily one would assume that
this statute should cover all Federal employees. However, with the
uniqueness of the Foreign Service there may be an argument for a
separate labor law, but I do not think the law should be written pre-
cisely as it is in the draft form.
One of the sections that gives us the most problem is the one that
suggests that, the exclusive representative would have a right to repre-
sent and/or be present with all unit employees in the grievance process.
There was quite a discussion earlier on this, having to do with the
individual employee's right to seek outside representation or represent-
ing his or herself.
Ordinarily, such provision would not cause us any problem provid-
ing we had a positive history of interaction and relationship with the
now existing exclusive representative. However, based on past history
we have experienced problems with the exclusive representative under
the current Executive Order 11636.
Hopefully, now we know that there is a new leadership in that orga-
nization our relationship will improve as we go forward.
Mr. GRAY. Thank you, Mr. Washington.
I would like to note that during these hearings and, unfortunately,
I have not been able to attend all of them, but for the ones I have at-
tended there have been no blacks present to testify nor did I see any
Hispanics or other minorities as part of the testifying group from the
Foreign Service or State Department other than this one or for that
matter, any women as well.
I also find very interesting the statistics you have presented in your
testimony which clearly show a preponderance of minority persons
at the lowest grade level which seems to reflect very clearly a lack of
mobility.
I want to thank you for coming and giving this testimony.
Mr. Chairman, that is all the questions I have.
Mr. FnscrLL. Are you suggesting in your testimony that any kind
of written examination be dispensed with?
Mr. SMTTir. No; the written examination is a screen. It is meant
to be.
Mr. FASCELL. You are simply suggesting that it could be improved?
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Mr. SMITH. Absolutely.
Mr. FASCELL. Factors which would affect blacks should be given
proper consideration and weight and that the written exam not be
relied on unnecessarily or arbitrarily or given too much weight?
Mr. SMITH. That is my point.
Mr. FASCELL. There is an additional method and, perhaps, a better
method, to find out more about an individual through careful oral
examination?
Mr. SMITH. I would suggest further that a strong affirmative action
program can itself extend beyond the written examination to help
those who are clearly disadvantaged. I am told Health, Education,
and Welfare, has allocated something like $3 million to help people
prepare to come in and do certain professional jobs for which they
find they have deficient minority representation.
Mr. FASCELL. Where the individual had no opportunity for prepara-
tion to start with so you have to make a conscious effort for total
preparation of that individual and not simply leave it up to the
classification system.
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir.
Mr. FASCELL. I understand. I am glad to get that clarified on the
record. I think that is very important, otherwise they might not have
a fair shot at any of these jobs.
Mr. Singletary?
STATEMENT OF JAMES SINGLETARY, FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER,
AID
Mr. SINGLETARY. Regarding the point of the examination, I think
there are times when the content of the examination might come into
question. For example, we have studies that indicate that many items
require specific pieces of factual knowledge regarding a wide range
of fairly esoteric areas. Although increasing numbers among members
of minority groups have developed some expertise relevant to Agency
needs, in many cases these skills and competencies may be hard-
brought. The effort needed to develop such skills may, for many, be
incompatible with devoting a great deal of time and energy to learning
about some of the more esoteric areas tapped by the examination.
Our position is that the examination should relate more directly to
the job to be done as well as to.the level of expertise required. In edu-
cation, we know, for example, that straight A students in teachers
colleges may not make the best teachers. They may be excellent for
researchers, but may not be the best teachers. In like manner, it is
suggested that more attention should be given to relate the examina-
tions to the job to be done.
Serious consideration should be given to revising the examinations
in order to reduce cultural bias. This may include the need to revamp
Agency thinking underlying the tests and placement procedures.
Focus should be on the kinds of items that would give a clear indica-
tion of probable success, over time.
Increasing the pool of successful minority applicants will have to
begin with increasing the pool. of minority applicants. Some potential
applicants may be dissuaded from even taking the exam after exposure
to the sample test questions. The Agency may want to take a different
tack if they revise their examinations. Rather than test specific pieces
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of knowledge that might be useful, they may want to identify critical
skills-for example, English expression, interpen-:nnal skills, cultural
sensitivity, and problem-solving ability-which they regard as im-
portant and test for these. Following this, successful applicants could
be trained in the specific knowledge needed. Individuals who already
have such knowledge could be exempted from the training by perform-
ing well on some type of exemption test-as is currently done in devel-
oping foreign language skills.
We ought to spend more time in career development counseling and
training. This is particularly true for current employees as well as
persons who are entering the Agency. They, both, need increased op-
portunities to strengthen their expertise in areas where they can make
increased contributions to the effectiveness of the Agency.
Mr. FASCELL. As part of an affirmative action program and follow-
ing up on what Mr. Smith said?
Mr. SINGLETARY. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. That is interesting to have that comment because tests
which would seek to evaluate certain traits and characteristics or
abilities of an individual change constantly with technology and
broader knowledge as we get to know mankind better and hopefully
more intelligently.
I do not know how often the written tests are reviewed or what
the makeup is of the people around the country who go into the
thinking process of certain questions to elicit some particular objec-
tive. I agree with you. I have looked at some of those. I not only
cannot answer them, but I do not have the slightest notion what they
are for.
I am sure the person who thought up the question has an answer,
but I would like to sit down and eyeball him and talk about it a little
bit. If we had that kind of process at least in the formulation of the
tests then we would have a little better shot in an affirmative action
program. To go in there absolutely blind without knowing who the
formulator was and what his purpose was is to make the test almost
meaningless. I quite agree with you on that.
Once you get into the mainstream I think there is a legitimate rea-
son and necessity for some kind of program to help people. I am not
quite sure how we do that in the Department. I think the point you
made about the boards is a very real point.
Yet we both agree there is probably no way to legislate that. This is
a question of internal dynamics in which the blacks and other minori-
ties would have an opportunity to exercise their impact through the
actual operations of the system with them as individuals in it. It seems
we can help that in some way but I do not know exactly how yet. I
have not formulated that.
Mr. WASIrTNGTON. Along that line, Mr. Chairman, that is the pri-
mary reason why we are so concerned about making our presentation
here today. We know you cannot legislate concerns and fairness
but, on the other hand, the kinds of regulations and operational guide-
lines within the Department and the other agencies will take their
impetus from the content of this statute for years to come.
We think we have the mechanisms to work with the formulations
of agencies' regulations but we need the basic fairness in this act.
We are fearful that if this act should pass without the very firm com-
mitment to affirmative action upon which we can build and develop
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the kinds of guidelines and regulations to implement affirmative ac-
tion, we are going to find ourselves in much worse condition than we
are now.
Mr. FASCELL. I would hope your fears would not be that strong by
the time we get through. Mr. Gray and others have worked very
diligently in the consideration of this bill to build a record of the
kind you are talking about.
Your testimony here today and the questions and answers we have
here will further buttress that.
I know both subcommittees will be very much interested in review-
ing the actual language which is in the bill. We are going to follow
your suggestion, I can assure you, about an adequate record. We will
include any necessary language in the report to follow up the language
that is in the bill.
There should not be any doubt or misunderstanding on anybody's
part concerning congressional intent. I do not think there will be any
question about that.
The next thing is how do you fit in on the regulatory part of it? That
is kind of a partnership arrangement. The Thursday Luncheon Group
is already ahead of everybody and they have an idea about what they
are going to do and how they are going to do it.
I think it is very important and, while the exclusive agent will also
be involved in that in some way, it does not necessarily have to be the
exclusive representative who has. all of the discussions with respect
to implementing regulations.
I think that could be made quite clear.
The committees of the Congress will be overseeing those regulations
and we will expect to hear from you if you see problems developing.
We do not want to get locked into regulations that we cannot live with.
I think there will be enough safeguards. The point is you have
alerted us and your testimony is very clear. I do not think anybody
could misunderstand what you are saying.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. I would like to make one observation to stress some-
thing that causes us exceeding anxiety and that is lack of representa-
tion at the top ranks of the Foreign Service. I am excluding in this
discussion politically appointed ambassadors and the like.
If you look around the world and consider black ambassadors and
black career ministers of whom we have only one throughout the Serv-
ice, most of them are from my generation and beyond. They are about
to move off the stage for one reason or another.
They are not backed at the middle and upper levels these days by
an adequate number of successors { suggest to us that the picture in
the near- and maybe the middle-range future will be anything but
dismal.
We have Ms. Barbara Watson, Assistant Secretary of State. We
have Vernon Johnson who is Deputy Assistant for Africa. We have
George Dawley and John Burroughs. That is all at the upper and
middle level.
When we lose ambassadors we lose people of the level of Ambassa-
dor Bohlen and I am talking about over a period of time and also
Rudy Aggrey, people who have been around. I am not talking about
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them in personal terms. I am talking about what is behind them and
what we have in the pipeline. That is not evident at all these days.
That scares us.
Mr. FASCELL. You think some special consideration has to be given
either by lateral entry or some way to deal with that problem?
Mr. SMITH. Absolutely.
Mr. FASCELL. I want to thank you very much for the specific sugges-
tions you have made not only in your testimony but in the answers to
questions. I would like to join Mr. Gray in urging you, if you have
some specific language, to get it to the subcommittee so we can look
at it.
We would be able to write something based on your general concerns
and the concepts you have laid out in your testimony but it would be
a lot better if you have the capability of getting the specifics to us. We
would then take it up with the legislative counsel and put it in the
right legislative form. Do not worry about whether or not it is legis-
latively accurate. Just be sure you have expressed, accurately the con-
cept you are supporting.
If you have legal advisors go ahead and get them to look at it also
and then turn it over to us and give us a chance to work with it.
Thank you very much.
[The information requested by the committees follows:]
Suggested amendments and comments to strengthen equal employment op-
portunity and due process in the selection, retention, training, assignment,
promotion, and advancement of employees (H.R. 4674).
An effective analysis of H.R. 4674 requires a side by side comparison to a)
the Foreign Service Act of 1924, b) the Foreign Service Act of 1946, c) the Civil
Service.Reform Act of 1978 and the proposed Bill. The Committee may wish to
authorize such an analysis.
SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS AND COMMENTS
TITLE I-THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT OF 1979
CHAPTER 1-GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 101. Findings and Objectives
Amend 101(b) (2) to 101(b) (2) (A).
Add "101(b)'(2) (B) Entry level employees in the Foreign Service shall be
comprised of fifty percent (50 percent) minorities and fifty percent (50 percent)
women until such time that minorities and women are represented in the senior
ranks of the Foreign Service in such numbers as they are represented in the
U.S. population."
Add 101(b) (2) (C) "Statutory and regulatory requirements governing em-
ployee selection processes in the competitive service to implement affirmative
action and promote equal employment opportunity are applicable to the Foreign
Service."
Sec. 102. Definitions
Amend 102(7) "merit principles" to read 102(7) "merit principles" means the
principles set out in section(s) 2301 and 2802 of title 5, United States Code;
Comment.-Sec. 2302 lists the "prohibited personnel practices" from the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978.
CHAPTER 2-MANAGEMENT OF THE SERVICE
Sec. 204. The Director Gcucral
Amend line 23 to read "The Director General shall assist the Secretary in the
management of the service and the implementation of affirmative action goals
and objectives and shall perform other functions, including those under Chapter
12, for the Service as the Secretary may prescribe."
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Sec. 205. The Inspector General (a)
Amend to read "Under the direction of the Secretary, the Inspector General
shall independently inspect the work of each Foreign Service post at least every
three years, shall inspect periodically the bureaus and offices of the Department
of State, and determine compliance with affirmative action goals and objectives,
.and shall perform such functions as the Secretary may prescribe."
Sec. 206. The Board of the Foreign Service
Amend line 2 to include after Service ", subject to the provisions of the Govern-
ment in Sunshine Act 5 USC 552b,"
Amend line 12 read after "Cooperation Agency, Equal Employment Oppor-
tunity Commission, the Office of Personnel Management"
Sec. 1021. Exclusive Recognition
Amend subsection (f) to include paragraph "(4) if the Board determines
that the organization is not in support of affirmative action and equal employ-
ment opportunity principles.
Sec. 1022. Employees Represented
Amend to include subparagraph "(4 individuals not currently employed by
the Foreign Affairs Agencies, members of the Senior Foreign Service, and
members of the Senior Executive Service.
Sec. 1023. Representation Rights and Duties
Amend line 19 after discrimination to include "race and sex"
Amend (b) (1) (A) line 1 after employment to read "specifically negotiated
by the exclusive bargaining representative" and delete "including ... issue ;"
Delete (b) (1) (B) page 117 line 18 "other . . . proceeding ;"
Sec. 1024. Resolution of Implementation Disputes
Delete (a) (3) "Foreign Service Grievance Board" and include "Federal Media-
tion Board"
Sec. 1041. Standard of Conduct of Labor Organizations
Amend page 125, line 11 after principles ? to include "and Affirmative Action
and Equal Employment Opportunity objectives"
Sec. 1051. Administrative Provisions
Delete page 128, line 21 "Except . . . execution."
Sec. 1101. Definition of Grievance
Amend (b) (2) line 15 . . . after body to read "acting in accordance with law
or regulation or precepts negotiated between the agency and the exclusive repre-
sentative. The Grievance Board shall review such appeals from such decisions
and shall sustain the finding if rendered in accordance with law, regulation, and
precepts if supported by a preponderance of the evidence."
Delete sec. (c) page 133 line 1-5.
Sec. 1103. Freedom of Action
Delete and substitute "(b) A grievant shall be represented by a representative
of his or her own choosing."
Sec. 1104. Time Limitations
Page 135 line 9 delete the word "three" and include the word "six" and delete
the word "shorter" and include the word "longer".
Page 135 line 20 delete "exclusive representative" and include "grievant" and
delete "(on behalf ... unit) ".
Sec. 1113. Board Decisions
Page 141 line 19 (b) (1) delete the word "falsely"
Mr. FASCELL. The subcommittees stand adjourned subject to the call
of the Chair.
[Whereupon, the subcommittees adjourned at 12:40 p.m.]
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THE FOREIGN SERVICE ACT
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1979
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,
AND
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittees met at 9:35 a.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House
Office Building, Dante B. Fascell (chairman of the Subcommittee on
International Operations) presiding.
Mr. FASCELL. At today's hearing we will continue our examination
of the Foreign Service Act of 1979.
We will begin with the testimony of Dr. Patrick Linehan, who is
the author of the 1975 Linehan study on the Foreign Service. Next,
Mir. Robert Gershenson will lead us in a discussion of the Hay com-
parability study, which has been the subject of numerous references
during our past hearings.
Then we will hear from Mr. Kenneth Bleakley, president of the
American Foreign Service Association. Then we will have Ben Read
and Jim Michel with their dog and pony show.
Dr. Linehan, the floor is all yours.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK E. LINEHAN, SENIOR RESEARCH ANA-
LYST, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AND AUTHOR, THE
LINEHAN STUDY ON THE FOREIGN SERVICE
Mr. LINEHAN. Mr. Chairman, my name is Pat Linehan. I am pres-
ently a senior research analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency
here in Washington, D.C.
The purpose for my being here is to present some of the more signifi-
cant findings of mdoctoral dissertation entitled "The Foreign Service
Personnel System': An Organizational Analysis," approved in March
1975 by the School for International Service, College of Public Affairs,
American University, Washington, D.C.
This testimony is given by me as a private citizen and not as a
representative of DIA.
It is indeed a privilege and an honor to be here before you to discuss
this research. My dissertation chairperson, Dr. Marian D. Irish, never
informed me that besides defending my research before her committee,
that one day I might be answering questions before a congressional
subcommittee.
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It is also by strange coincidence that you, Mr. Chairman, are my
Congressman. I doubt that you have the opportunity to meet many of
your constituents in this forum.
Historically, the Foreign Service has shown a remarkable capa-
bility to resist change. Very few organizational changes of true signifi-
cance have occurred, the few exceptions being the 1924 Rogers Act,
the 1946 Foreign Service Act, the 1954 Wriston Report, and the Ma-
comber study, "Diplomacy for the 1970's" in 1.970.
Although this study was completed 4 years ago and was published
in 1976, I strongly suggest that its findings are still valid today. This
is especially true of the interview data concerning FSO attitudes and
perceptions toward their careers.
Whereas the hard statistical data such as that concerning person-
nel distribution by class, functional specialization-cones-and bureau
identification has certainly changed, it probably has not done so
significantly.
The methodology involved was a stratified sampling technique
structured to insure that each FSO class and cone was proportion-
ately represented in relation to the total Foreign Service. Conse-
quently, 330 individuals-10 percent of the total Foreign Service popu-
lation), were intensively interviewed on a confidential, nonattribution
basis, the average interview lasting 11// hours.
However, due to research design requirements, the interviews were
not randomly selected because key individuals in the organizational
structure such as those responsible for counseling, training, assign-
ments et cetera, had to be interviewed.
In September 1973 there were 3,352 Foreign Service officers-3,128
men and 234 women-from FSO class 8 up to the rank of career
ambassador. The distribution of personnel up through the grade levels
was approximately diamond-shaped with the greatest percentage of
personnel at the FSO-4 level. However, the personnel distribution of
female FSO's, who comprised only 6.9 percent of the Service, was
roughly the same shape as that of the overall distribution, but it was
one grade level lower.
The distribution of officers classified according to their skill code
or functional specialty-cone-was as follows: political officers, 37.6
percent; economic/commercial officers, 23.7 percent; administration
officers, 16 percent ; program direction officers, 11.7 percent ; and con-
sular officers, 10.6 percent.
The most frequent observations made by Foreign Service officers
during the interviews were as follows : FSO's are rank oriented. Every-
thing is directed toward obtaining a promotion. The traditional suc-
cess pattern still prevails, that is, the political officer with a geographi-
cal specialization-"home" in a. bureau-frequently in Europe. And
there is a general consensus of attitude showing lack of faith and con-
fidence in the integrity of the existing system.
Elitism seems to increase as career officers develop a sense of com-
mitment to the Foreign Service. Although midcareer officers and espe-
cially senior level officers do feel that they are in an elite, interviews
with 35 junior officers during the 6-week training period following
selection-in revealed that incoming officers do not share this perception.
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However, from 1971 to 1973, out of 41,317 individuals who applied
for the Foreign Service entrance examination, only 412-0.9 percent-
entered on duty for the 3-year period. In 1974, 91 percent of all FSO's
had at least a bachelor's degree. Almost three-quarters of the service,
73.3 percent, had some graduate study and 47 percent had a master's
degree or higher. These and other statistics tend to substantiate the
elitist perspective.
Nevertheless, this difference in perceptions between junior and
senior level officers is characteristic of a fundamental difference under-
lying many of the problems faced by the Foreign Service in its at-
tempts to evolve with the times. The fundamental difference is a
function of the fact that both junior and senior level officers are prod-
ucts of their historical times.
The senior Foreign Service officer is a product of the Depression,
World War II, the rebuilding of Europe, the Korean War, McCarthy-
ism, the cold war, Wristonization, and a polarization of attitudes
in an increasingly militarized, technologically advanced, interna-
tional environment.
Upon going into the Foreign Service, these men were essentially
conservative, disciplined, and elite-oriented in the traditional sense.
Consequently, they accepted the established values and norms with-
out serious challenge.
The junior Foreign Service officer today has a living history which
may or may not include World War II but generally is associated
with the time of President Truman. Coinciding with his physical
maturation, the junior. officer's intellectual development and philo-
sophical orientation had its roots in the time of the liberalism of Presi-
dent Kennedy which matured with the problems of Vietnam, ecology,
civil rights, and the drug counterculture.
This particular outlook challenges the status quo and seeks change
at a rate which may appear threatening to an established order such
as the traditional Foreign Service. Until he has developed a real sense
of commitment to the Foreign Service, the junior officer has no per-
sonal stake in the system to protect other than immediate job security.
An officer's sense of commitment must be developed by the time an
FSO reaches the level of class 4; otherwise, he is trapped due to age,
increasing economic responsibilities and skills that are not widely
marketable.
Many Foreign Service officers expressed their annoyance with the
traditional image of an elitist corps. And even though the subculture
norms associated with the traditonal image have changed, the stigma
lingers on. However, despite officer annoyance, Foreign Service officers
as a professional group statistically do represent an elite.
Morale in the Foreign Service is viewed from two basic perspec-
tives. One concerns issues with which the individual can grapple,
such as situations in which an officer can participate in the resolution
of a problem. He may try to resolve, informally, any dissatisfaction
concerning assignments, training, promotion, involuntary retirement
or a personal grievance; or he may initiate a formal grievance pro-
ceeding after attempting to resolve the problem informally.
The primary point is that the officer knows that he has some re-
course, both formal and informal, by which to air dissatisfactions
and to resolve a perceived grievance.
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The second perspective concerns, primarily, the relationship between
the principal officers on the seventh floor and the Foreign Service as a
whole. The Navy maxim, "Loyalty upward requires loyalty down-
ward," characterizes this relationship.
Throughout the interview process, officers overwhelmingly expressed
the feeling that the corps lacks a sense of direction from the top and
that the apex of the Department lacks a sense of responsibility to the
Foreign Service.
Although the apex of the State Department is politically oriented
and reflects the President and his policies, effective leadership is still,
in part, a function of individual personality and style. However, the
apex of the State Department has traditionally received a bad press
and it galls Foreign Service officers to read about ineffectiveness at the
top of the Department.
Mr. FASCELL. I have the same problem. [Laughter.]
Mr. LINEHAN. Although specialization is still viewed by many For-
eign Service careerists as a threat to mobility, a much more tolerable
attitude now exists for its need. The middle grades, classes 3, 4, and 5,
are the levels where most of the specialized work of the Service is done.
When an officer passes the threshold review and accepts promotion
to class 5, he commits himself in writing to accept the bulk of his mid-
career assignments in his cone. One underlying assumption of this in-
cone assignment policy at mideareer is that each cone offers an attrac-
tive career to its officers.
However, officer interviews indicate that the present status of the
various cones is still not considered equal, perhaps a direct result of
the former situation in which the political officer received the majority
of promotions and the best assignments and in which the other cones
were thought of in varying degrees as dumping grounds for less
competitive political officers.
This perception is still prevalent throughout much of the Service,
even though management has attempted to balance the competitiveness
of the respective cones for both promotions and assignments.
Nevertheless, generalization, complemented by a functional special-
ization in the political and/or economic-commercial field, is the most
preferred route for success, primarily because the political and eco-
nomic functions are still considered to be the mainstream of the Foreign
Service.
The orientation of these two functions is inherently closer to policy
considerations and is perceived to be better rewarded in the promotion
system and assignment process, thus providing a more direct route to
the top. However, many political officers, despite the perceived bias
favoring them, feel that they have been shortchanged by the introduc-
tion of the cone system of functional specialization.
Certain informal signals at various points in an officer's career indi-
cate that his potential to assume greater responsibilities is being rec-
ognizedby the Service. Nearly all the informal signals are in the form
of certain assignments and training which keynote executive grooming,
and an officer's "corridor reputation" plays a primary role in his
ability to obtain these key assignments.
Traditionally, the favorite route to the top in a successful Foreign
Service career has been the political function. The perceived bias of
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the Foreign Service toward the political officer is to some extent sub-
stantiated by the type of training available to him, such as it better
prepares him for executive/management positions than the training
which is provided for other types of officers.
The traininor traditionally associated with the political cone seams
to be required for program direction and eventually for the positions of
Chief of Mission and Deputy Chief of Mission, Assistant or Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State, and the more responsible positions up
from the FSO-3 level.
However, since the adoption of the cone system, both the political
cone and the economic/commercial cone offer attractive careers with
the realistic expectation of a "shot at the top."
There is a consensus of officer perceptions regarding the bureau in-
fluence on the assignment process. The bureau seems to have tremen-
dous impact on actual assignments. Consequently, officers seeking to en-
hance their competitiveness for promotions and desired assignments
often identify with a particular bureau. This serves to establish their
importance to that bureau, which in turn works in behalf of the in-
dividual.
Thus, officers who make a home in a bureau by becoming specialists
often benefit from the mystique which seems to surround these cliques
of officer expertise, especially expertise in particular geographical
areas. They represent an elite within an elite.
The primary specialist groups or clubs are the German hands, Rus-
sian hands, Japanese hands, Chinese hands, and the Arabists. The
mystique surrounding these groups enhances an officer's corridor repu-
tation and may influence his success in obtaining desirable assignments.
Mr. FASCFLL. May I interrupt you right there? You mean the Euro-
pean Bureau is the bottom of the ladder? It doesn't even make, the
club?
Mr. LINEHAN. It is probably the most prestigious bureau, sir, but
these particular groups of Foreign Services officers
Mr. FASCELL. There is a special mystique about these four you named,
and while the European Bureau has some prestige, it is really not on
the inside. That is going to surprise George Vest.
Mr. LINEHAN. No, sir. The European Bureau has the highest level
of prestige and was coveted the most.
Mr. FASCELL. OK, go ahead. I was just curious.
Mr. LINEHAN. Implicit in the idea of establishing a "home" within
a bureau is the underlying assumption of establishing a number of
identifications which appear to present the ideal means of pursuing a
successful career in the Foreign Service.
The first identification is to select the political cone as one's primary
function with the intent of complementing it with economic training
at the midcareer level, preferably, immediately following promotion
to FSO-5.
The second identification involves developing a geographical spe-
cialization with the primary emphasis on the EUR bureau, NEA
bureau, and EA bureau, depending upon the individual's language
orientation.
The third identification involves mastering at least one "hard lan-
guage,",preferably Russian, Arabic, Japanese, or Chinese, supported
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by at least one of the "world languages," preferably French or Ger-
man. Both the individual and the service invest a lot of time, money
and effort to develop these officers, and the bureaus are quite jealous
of their good officers and protect them by facilitating their assign-
ments and career progress.
The fact that these particular regions are of significant importance
to the United States makes it imperative that they are staffed by
outstanding officers. Thus the Service indirectly sponsors these in-
dividuals who have the talent, have demonstrated the ability (func-
tional expertise/geographical specialization/country orientation),
have established a "home" in a bureau, and are receiving bureau
support.
The age-rank relationship is an extremely important criterion
for success in the perceptions of nearly all officers in every
rank and cone. Second only to an officer's relative age, the
number of years he has served in his present class is the most obvious
indicator of his upward mobility. Performance is perceived by officers
in terms of how it affects one's chances for promotion and next assign-
ment.
If there is a significant difference between an FSO and his super-
visor regarding attitudes toward job performance, the subordinate
may likely suppress his own opinions due to the impact of his efficiency
report (written by his supervisor) and its crucial role in enhancing
his promotability.
Job expectations, although organizationally defined by job descrip-
tions, are often not clarified in terms of the supervisor's interpretation
of the job. Consequently, there is potential conflict in legitimate differ-
ences of interpretation, and again, the crux of the problem is the role
of the efficiency report.
The impact of this report is crucial to the success or failure of an
officer's career in the Foreign Service because it is the only too]
provided for the promotion selection boards in the exercise of its
duties.
Officers now compete for promotion within their functional cone.
However, if one, assumes that four different applications of merit
are inherent in the organizational structure of the cone system, then
promotions based on merit must employ a common denominator other
than the functional priorities-substantive/nonsubstantive functions-
which have traditionally been favored in the promotion process.
From the time the policy -of full disclosure was adopted in 1971,
FSO's have been required to read their efficiency report, and there
is nearly unanimous agreement among officers that efficiency reports
are bland as well as overinflated.
These trends, although influenced by many variables, are primarily
the result of the evaluator's unwillingness to become involved in a
grievance proceeding regarding the contents of an efficiency report
that he wrote.
They are bland because the rating officer does not discuss the weak-
nesses of an individual; they are overinflated in order to make the
officer being rated as competitive as possible for promotion. Conse-
quently, efficiency reports range from descriptions of superhuman
` waterwalkers" or "comers" who "glow in the dark" to the individual
who is "damned by faint praise" or a negative word count.
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Inadvertently, officers are often penalized because the task of the
promotion selection boards is impossible : To determine on the basis
of over-inflated efficiency reports which officers are more perfect than
their contemporaries.
Over 95 percent of all officers interviewed agreed that individuals
who utilize the grievance procedure take a calculated risk of damaging
their career prospects. This perception is the byproduct of the noto-
riety surrounding several grievance proceedings which seem to have
stigmatized the process.
These cases were not perceived solely as a grievance, but rather as
individuals challenging the discipline and structure of the organiza-
tion. Consequently, the stigma is the result of the style in which these
initial grievances were individually pursued, styles which, subse-
quently, have made it difficult for the organization to perceive a legiti-
mate complaint solely on the merit of the facts of the case.
Therefore, the individual who utilizes the grievance procedure must
also be concerned with its impact on his career as well as potential
reprisals ; and the Service must be concerned with its effect on the
discipline of the organization. Under such conditions, anyone who
pursues a grievance, even a legitimate grievance, runs the risk of
being stigmatized as a "troublemaker," or one who "rocks the boat."
As indicated in the 1973 civil service study, the single distinguish-
ing characteristic of the Foreign Service system which justifies its
exclusion from the civil service competitive system is its selection-out
concept, not its rank-in-man concept.
The rank-in-position concept associated with the civil service states
that the rank and income of an individual. are equivalent to the rank
and income assigned to a particular position. However, the rank-in-
man concept allows an individual to serve in positions other than those
designated for his rank. The rank-in-man concept is not in conflict
with the concept of rank in position; it is simply more flexible.
In addition to selection-out for cause, an officer who has been passed
over for promotions too many times may be selected out for exceeding
the time-in-grade limitations specified in the regulations. However,
the threshold concept at the FSO-5 level guarantees 20 years tenure
in which to reach FSO-2, with a maximum of 15 years at any one
level.
This tenure, for all practical purposes, assures FSO's of what most
'people would call a normal career, that is, at least 20 years employ-
ment with good retirement benefits.
Thus, the meager use of the selection-out function raises the question
of whether or not this concept is still sufficient reason to justify the
exclusion of the Foreign Service from the competitive Federal system
in practice by the civil service.
Many factors in the Foreign Service system tend to aline in the pro-
duction of a stereotypic image of a Foreign Service officer. Beginning
with the highly selective induction process, new appointees are sub-
ject to the influence of the. strong cultural press during the period of
orientation and the first few years of acculturation into the Service.
At some point during this initial period, either the officer inculcates
the subcultural norms and values and reflects them in his behavior or
he rejects them at the risk of jeopardizing his career. The informal
system may make personal dissent extremely costly in terms of career
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success-poor corridor reputation, average efficiency reports, slow rate
of promotions, mediocre assignments.
Consequently, officers take a calculated risk when they choose to dis-
sent on a personal level. On the other hand, policy dissent may often be
acceptable to the informal system, if not to the formal system. The
key element in policy dissent is the matter of style, that is, the manner,
timing, and audience to which the dissent is made.
One example of this is the FSO disillusionment in Vietnam. Early
in the U.S. involvement, FSO's who sought Vietnam assignments re-
ceived special consideration from the Service. However, this early vol-
unteerism contrasts sharply with the reluctance of officers to accept
post-Tet assignments which were based principally on the needs of
the Service, not volunteers.
Perhaps the turning point in attitudes toward Vietnam had its ori-
gins in the Tet offensive in February 1968, which occurred near the
peak of the U.S. military commitment, a time in which the U.S. public
was being assured by President Johnson of the validity of the com-
mitment, politically, and of the fact that the United States was in
control, militarily, and that a U.S. military victory was in sight. Thus,
the Tet offensive undermined the integrity of the administration's
stance and created a credibility gap in the public mind.
It also made a Vietnam assignment much less desirable to Foreign
Service officers many of whom would serve in the pacification program
entitled "Civil Operation and Revolutionary Development Support
Program" (CORDS). In CORDS, FSO's functioned as advisors to
the Vietnamese civilian and military administration.
Based on interviews with FSO's with Vietnam and CORDS expe-
rience, this post-Tet period seems to mark a break in the officer percep-
tion of the advantages and disadvantages of a Vietnam assignment.
It was CORDS' continuing need for trained personnel that led to
the establishment of the Vietnam Training Center (VTC) where per-
sonnel received training in the Vietnamese language, history, and
culture.
They also learned U.S. policy toward the Vietnam conflict. Perhaps
CORDS was the only Foreign Service assignment in which FSO's
were issued their own personal automatic weapons and received train-
ing in how to fire a grenade launcher before beginning the assignment.
In mid-August 1971, the State Department stopped assigning all
but a few FSO's to CORDS : however, by this time, of the 600 FSO's
who had been assigned to Vietnam, 350 had served with CORDS.
Many of these CORDS veterans were quite vocal about their dissatis-
faction with the assignment and its potentially negative effect on their
careers.
They were also quite concerned about the lack of integrity in the.
reporting process in Vietnam. One FSO Vietnam veteran has reported
that :
Almost all FSO's who served in the pacification program and most junior
members of the Embassy staff itself give examples of how their reporting was
distorted and suppressed in Saigon in order that the Embassy might be consist-
ent with the prevailing "line" In dispatches to Washington.
The primary effect of FSO disillusionment in Vietnam has been the
development of certain attitudes in men who later will have an impact
on the development anti implementation of U.S. foreign policy.
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Acutely aware of the mistakes made in Vietnam, it is likely that these
men with Vietnam experience will seek to prevent a similar situation
from occurring again.
This common Vietnam experience provides a potential catalyst for
the development of an old-boy network, a network whose influence is
enhanced by the fact that it is not identified with a particular bureau
or cone or class. And as individuals rise through the ranks to posi-
tions of influence, the network will begin to have an impact.
The majority of FSO's from classes 8 through 4 are primarily con-
cerned with personal and career-oriented goals inasmuch as they
feel that they are not highs enough in rank to influence policy.
However, officers in the political and economic/commercial cones
at the FSO-3 level and above-not administration or consular cones-
do achieve certain job satisfaction when phrases or sections of re-
ports they have made are incorporated in policy issues, or when they
can witness the implementation of recommendations to which they
have contributed.
These and other substantive accomplishments are the success to
which FSO's aspire and which is only attainable through promotions
up through the ranks into a position involving policy issues.
Overall, the functioning of the Foreign Service system is equitable
in statistical terms although it is not perceived to be so by FSO's.
Consequently, their lack of faith and confidence in the integrity of
the formal system is characterized by their pervasive use of the infor-
mal system.
In conclusion, I would like to make some observations based on my
relationship with Foreign Service personnel over the past 3 years.
Since my employment with DIA in October 1976, I have met fre-
quently with FSO's on a professional basis both here in Washington
and abroad. Last fall, I had. the opportunity to visit several African
countries which included a number of consultations with Foreign
Service personnel who also assisted me in the coordination of my
itinerary.
This professional association only reinforced my research findings
and my personal opinion that the quality of our Foreign Service per-
sonnel is very high and they are most capable of representing the
United States abroad.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my presentation.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Dr. Linehan. We will receive
the attachments to your statement for the committee files.
I want to thank you for giving us this very microscopic look at the
tissue and the blood flow of the State Department and for articulating
its group dynamics. I don't know that there is any difference between
the group dynamics in this particular group and any other group. I
would venture, just by guessing, that they are probably exactly the
same given the same kind of people or the same culture or the same
society.
Mr. LINEHAN. Yes.
Mr. FASCELL. I ani a little bit surprised, I guess, at your final con-
clusion. I happen to agree with it, however, and I am delighted that
you reached it. I gather that your study was probably the largest, in
terms of the universe that was interviewed, of any study of the De-
partment.
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534
Mr. LINEHAN. I am not aware of another study in which an indi-
vidual had this type of access to Foreign Service officers for that
length of time, although John Harr has conducted a number of studies
and has done some outstanding work on the Foreign Service system.
Mr. FASCELL. You have come to the 'conclusion, as I gather it, that it
doesn't really make any difference to the personnel dynamics within the
Department what kind of administrative structure you have. Is that
correct?
Mr. LINEHAN. That is correct, sir.
Mr. FASCELL.. So you are not specifically suggesting that the cone
system be abolished or some other internal system of administration be
imposed.
Mr. LINEHAN. I think each Foreign Service officer should be very
much aware of the advantages and disadvantages of any one partic-
ular cone prior to his agreeing to go into that cone.
Mr. FASCELL. I think that is the problem. If you talk about the ad-
ministrative and the consular cone and the elimination of the com-
mnercial cone for all practical purposes, it leaves you with the economic
and the political cone. If you are going to get to the top, everybody
knows you are not going to do it if you are in the consular cone. At
least that has not been the statistical experience.
Mr. LINEHAN. The statistical data, at least when I conducted my re-
search, supports the conclusion that a consular officer could realistically
expect to become an FSO-3, the administrative officer, perhaps an
FSO-2, whereas the political and economic officers could realistically
aspire to become an FSO-1 and to assume a position of relative im-
portance in policy and decisionmaking.
Mr. FASCELL. It is that very fact that you describe that has con-
cerned us for some time in the Congress and, I am sure, has troubled
the Department. Do your studies suggest any way by which this could
be improved?
Mr. LINEHAN. No, sir, it did not, other than that each Foreign Serv-
ice officer should be made very much aware of the advantages and dis-
advantages of any one career path over the other.
Mr. FASCELL. If the Department did that, and I am sure they either
are or will, and then devised by some regulation or some other action a
method by which some kind of rotation among cones was possible as
you went up the line, without affecting your career adversely, do you
think that would produce some improvement?
Mr. LINEHAN. Dr. Kissinger when he was Secretary of State in-
troduced a program that was referred to euphemistically as GLOP.
Mr. FASCELL. GLOP?
Mr. LINEHAN. The first functional training of Foreign Service offi-
cers so that they would have a broader experience in each cone. Its
success, however, I don't know too much about at this time.
Mr. FASCELL. Mrs. Schroeder.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I want to compliment you. I really think that you
did an excellent job of analysis. I think you gave us a very accurate
portrayal. One of the things that concerns me, though, is, as the chair-
man pointed out, the problems are not that unique to any human
organization.
Mr. LINEHAN. No; it is not. Any large organization is going to have
similar problems regarding the promotion of its personnel and assign-
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 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
535
ments and what have you. But the thing about the State Department-
I am not saying it is any different in the State Department than in
any large organization-is that by the time a Foreign Service officer
reaches the junior FSO-5 level, and especially if he is a political/
economic officer, he had better be working in the informal system. If he
is not, unless he is exceptionally good, where he doesn't have to worry
about operating in the informal system, his career will be short-
circuited.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I notice one of the things that you didn't mention
in here were the family pressures, which I think may be a little bit
more unique in the Foreign Service than in some other profession. I
know my good spouse took all the exams, passed them all, went to
Princeton and did all the right things and thought about going into the
Foreign Service. He took one look at me and said, "Oh, my God, I'll
never get past there."
He was probably right. It was probably a very good decision. I
notice that you didn't mention that in here. That is something we are
trying to deal with more in the bill. Did you do anything in your study
in particular on the pressures this organization puts on family and
spouses?
Mr. LINEHAN. Only that by the time a Foreign Service officer be-
comes a level 4, if he and his family haven't reconciled the problems
associated with a career in. the Foreign Service, he is more or less
trapped.
First of all, the skills are not that marketable. Age becomes a factor
by that time. There are a lot of these other variables which will prevent
him from moving out. But I don't address it extensively. I do provide
data on marriages, dependency, dependents and what have you. Not
a solid analysis in that respect.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. So he could truly be penalized for not having a very
adaptable spouse.
Mr. LINEHAN. Yes; he could. The wives are very important to the
success of Foreign Service officers.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Which I think may exacerbate a lot of the things
you are talking about. That may make the pressure much more intense.
Mr. LINEHAN. Yes.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Also, I wanted to ask you, if you compared Intelli-
gence with the Foreign Service, it seems to me one of the big differences
is really the Foreign Service is practically all software. You are not
talking about any hardware that you need to be dealing with. So maybe
those human aspects are much more important because you never have
a check.
Mr. LINEH AN. No : I didn't make that kind of comparison.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. What about on the cones? Would you recommend
that we try to make them more equal rather than just counseling people
that they are not equal? My theory is that if you take everyone into the
room and say : "Now, if you get in this cone, you have only got a 5-per-
cent chance." you have already automatically filtered people who think,
"Oh, well, I want to go compete with the dummies or something, or
I am not really interested in this as a career."
I agree that you should have disclosure, but isn't the real way to do
it to try to make them more equal ?
Mr. LINEHAN. I don't think you can make the cones equal.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Wily? `J
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 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
Mr. LINEHAN. The main stream, as I view the State Department and
the Foreign Service, the substantive issues fall within the political and
economic responsibilities. No one can dispute the importance of the
consular and administrative function.
But I kind of go along with the perceptions that they do not fall
within the substantive mission of the State Department. That might
sound like a hard thing to say and I am sure a lot of people don't like
to hear it. But the State Department provides political and economic
analysis, which is very important.
The administrative officer, who perhaps has more access to a lot of
important officials in countries abroad because of the administration of
U.S. programs which bring him into contact with so many highly im-
portant Government officials, is probably underused in his relative
political importance to the country team.
The consular officer, on the other hand, is purely associated with
stamping visas, helping Americans out of trouble, not really involved
with substantive policy matters which are going. to impact on U.S.
policy one way or the other.
Also, I might add that administrative and consular officers express
to me on a frequent basis the fact that they were not invited to partici-
pate in country team meetings. It is an attitude. It is a perceptual
difficulty. But as long as they are perceived as not being substantively
oriented, trying to balance out the cones is going to be rather difficult.
Mrs. SolIROEDER. I guess that is where we would probably disagree.
I have great problems understanding this mystique about the substan-
tive knowledge that people have.
Mr. LINEHAN. Well, that is what they have in this industry.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I hear that you cannot have both substantive and
administrative qualities. If substantive orientation is that vital and
important, it seems like you could put that requirement in the consular
and administrative cone too, and then you try to, make the cones more
equal.
Mr. LINEHAN. If you have an organization that is structured one
way, and the vast majority of the people who work with that particu-
lar organization think and feel another way, then regardless of what
your structure is, it is not going to work. You are still going to have
the majority of your officers wanting to be political and economic
officers, event though you might try very hard to balance out the re-
wards, if you will, in the consular and the administrative functions.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is what we are struggling with. I guess I
just don't agree.
Mr. LINEHAN. It is difficult.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I think the administrative types probably have to
be more political in some of the situations they are put in than the
purist political types who are sitting there trying to analyze what is
going on. I remember full well a political officer telling us in Greece
as they were firing at us that it was a bunch of students throwing
apples with razor blades in them. The whole Armed Services Com-
mittee said : "Are you kidding? Those look like M-1s."
The administrative officers seem to know much more because they
have been dealing with people face to face.
Mr. LINEHAN. That is true.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. I just have not bought that mystique. I guess I am
in that younger generation that doesn't buy that mystique and can't
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 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
understand why that substantive knowledge cannot be conveyed to
the people in the other cones. There is no great mystique about that.
But I really do thank you for your overview and for your presen-
tation this morning. Thank you.
Mr. FASCELL.Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Thank you very much, Dr. Linehan. I appreciate your
testimony. Thank you for appearing. Also, I am delighted to see that
you got your dissertation published.
Mr. LINEIIAN. Thank you. So am I.
Mr. FASCELL. Our next witness is Mr. Robert Gershenson from the
Department of State.
We are delighted to have you here this morning.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT S. GERSHENSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF PERSONNEL, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. GERSHENSON. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman and Madam Chairwoman, it is a pleasure to be here
with you this morning. I am Bob Gershenson, Deputy Assistant Secre-
tary of State for Personnel. My claim to fame this morning is that I
was the supervising officer of a famous contract that you have heard a
lot about, the Hay Associates study of pay comparability in the For-
eign Service. I welcome a chance to talk with you about that study
today.
Mr. Chairman, I had thought of covering this today in some depth if
that is agreeable to you and the remainder of the committee, basically
in three phases. Please let me know, sir, if any of them are not of inter-
est to you.
The first phase will describe the process and the study itself: How
was it done, what did it encompass, why did we do it. The second phase
will cover the results of the study. The third thing I would like to talk
about today are what appear to be the options for implementing the
study.
Basically, sir, we undertook this study at the behest of Congress,
based on longstanding pressure from and interest of many Foreign
Service officers and Foreign Service personnel, because there has been
a longstanding difference of opinion as to where our pay system is or
should'be.
We contacted the Hay Associates, which is one of the largest pay
comparability consulting firms in the world. They have contracts with
about 350 of the Fortune 500 companies. We asked them to do a study
for us which basically tried to do three things.
First, we asked them to look at how the State Department's pay
system linked or should link to the civil service pay system. We are
required, sir, under the pay comparability study of 1962 to relate to
the civil service pay system.
Second, we asked them to look at our pay in comparison to pay in
private business, with particular emphasis on corporation activities
abroad. The civil service pay comparability studies do not take into
account corporation activities abroad.
Third, we asked the Hay Associates to suggest to us either one, sev-
eral, or many possible pay systems for the Department of State.
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 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to now lead you through the
process we went through. You have in front of you, sir, two sets of
charts. I would like to call your attention first to one that has lots of
numbers on it and is referred to as "know-how."
[The chart referred to followsj
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 Approved For Release 2008/10/27: CIA-RDP85-00003R000100070001-3
Mr. GERSHENSON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that the lights
be turned off. You may not be able to see clearly the charts on the
screen, but in all honesty. I think better and sound better on my feet.
So if I may, I would like to stand up and do a little pointing at the
screen.
Basically, sir, the Hay Associates system does not try to compare
a job with a job. It doesn't say: Let's see, we have an officer class 4 in
the State Department, let's find someone like that at General Motors
and see what they pay, and we should pay them the same thing. They
don't do that because their experience over many years is that it is
really not possible. Even the same job in two different companies may
not be the same. They may have the same title and same description,
but the duties may be different.
So they have a system in which they try to avoid interrelating
individual jobs and try to calculate the value of job content on a point
basis.
The chart you see before you is part of the system that Hay As-
sociates uses to develop the point value for job content of jobs. Basi-
cally what they did was ask the Department to formulate a committee
with representatives from the various kinds of work in the depart-
ment, and sit down with four or five of them to discuss and evaluate
jobs based on the experience and knowledge that the individuals and
the committee had.
We asked our professional labor organization for suggestions as to
who might sit on that committee. A number of the committee members
were those recommended and suggested by AFSA.
We sat down together and we tried to attack this problem under the
leadership of Hay consultants. The first question we were told to ask
ourselves, was the basic component of any job. What do you need now
to do that job? What you see before you is a chart of what they call
know-how points. The question is, how much knowledge, how much
background, how much experience, how much management ability is
required to effectively perform a given job?
We looked at each job in three ways, Mr. Chairman. First, we
looked down this side to see what kind of techniques or disciplines are
required to perform the job. If you look at the chart in front of you,
you can see it, sir. You will see there are various descriptions ranging
from elementary vocational to exceptional mastery.
We went to a job and we said, OK, this job falls into this category;
therefore, somewhere around this range is what points that job should
have. Next, we are told to look at the top to see how much integration
of that "know-how" is required, is there only straight line work or
does it require you to put some things together?
So we picked one of these, and further reduced the area of possible
points to a group of nine.
Finally, we were asked how much skill in interpersonal relations-
human relations skills-were necessary to effectively perform each job.
Our committee found that in the Foreign Service, particularly, human
relations skills are of extreme importance. We came to the conclusion
that our people always require the highest level of human relations
skills in almost all our jobs.
So we wound up in this last column and had three numbers to choose
from. We made a decision as to which to choose based on which way
we had been leaning on any of the questions asked before.
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>~-` 7:, ,1 !"~. /. i- Imo!
), % /% i? t~ -- ' FOREIGN AFFAIRS CHAPTER
ASIAN AND PACIFIC AMERICAN FEDERAL EMPLOYEE COUNCIL
c/o EOP, Room 2664 NS. ATD DepnrtfimP.nt oj State
Waslwigton, D.C. 20523
Honorable Cyrus R. Vance
Secretary of State
Washington, D.C.
First, we wish to express our appreciation for the Department's
sponsorship of a foreign affairs special briefing on May 7 for
interested Asian American organizations and leaders. We sincerely
hope this will be the beginning of a dialogue involving Asian
Americans and will result in a meeting between yourself and Asian
American leaders later this Fall. We truly appreciate the hard
work, enthusiasm and support of Assistant Secretary Hodding Carter
and his staff in preparing for the special briefing.
When you created the Task Force on Equal Employment Opportunity two
years ago, we strongly supported its goals. We spoke before the
Task Force on June 16, 1977 and submitted a special report on Asian
American employment in State, and AID. Later when you announced that
more appointments for Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State should
be appointed from among minorities (including, we assume, Asian Amer-
icans) and that a special employees council on equal employment would
be created, we again applauded these actions in a letter to you.
We explained to the Task Force that despite the contributions that
Asian Americans could make at the policy-making level, expecially
for Asia and the Pacific Basin, they are excluded from foreign
policy-making positions. This is highly regrettable since Asia has
become the major focus of U.S. foreign policy. As a result there
seems to be an invisible line--generally at the GS-15 (FSO/R/10-3)
level--above which Asian Americans do not rise.
We would like to emphasize that no Asian Americans have been
selected for long-term training by State, AID or ICA for at least
the past six to seven years--training which is generally a stepping
stone to higher responsibility.
Time-in-grade for Asian American employees is substantially longer
in almost all grades in AID; there is no reason to believe that the
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situation in State or ICA is any different. Data on this matter are
urgently needed.
As we recommended in 1977, we cannot over-emphasize the need in 1979
for State, AID and USICA to launch a systematic, sustained and
concerted recruitment program to attract a greater number of compe-
tent Asian Americans at all levels to serve in the several U.S. for-
eign affairs agencies.
We pointed out to the Task Force in June 1977 that no Asian Americans
held any high level positions either in State or AID (except for
Patsy Mink who later resigned), and we called for, among other ac-
tions, a concerted, systematic and sustained effort to find and ap-
point appropriate candidates from among present employees (FSS, FSPs,
GSS) in State and AID and from among the Asian American community at
large to selected executive positions.
To date we have not received any response to our letter mentioned
above and based on available data no major senior appointments of
Asian Americans have taken place in foreign affairs. Thus, after
two years there are still:
A. State
1. No Asian American Assistant Secretaries (except for
Patsy Mink who later resigned in 5/78)
No Asian American Deputy Assistant Secretariec-
3. No Asian American Ambassador and Deputy Chief of
Mission
4. No Asian American Principal Officers
5. No Asian American Country/Office Directors (Dr. Luke Lee's
Office Directorship was abolished in 5/79)
6. No Asian American GS-16-les--highest is GS-15
7. No Asian American FS-ls (only one FSO-2)
8. A few Asian Americans in mid-level GS grades
9. A few Asian Americans in mid-level FSO grades.
8. AID
1. No Asian American Assistant Administrator
2. No Asian American Deputy Assistant Administrator
3. No Asian, American Mission Director/Deputy Mission
Director
4. No Asian American Office Director with supergrade rank
5. No Asian American FSR-1, 2s; highest is FSR-3
6. No Asian American GS/AD-16-18s; highest is GS-15
7. No Asian American in the higher FSS levels.
C. ICA
1. No Asian American Assistant Directors
2. No Asian American PAOs
3. No Asian American F5I0-1, 2s; highest is FSIO-3
4. No Asian American GS-16-18s; highest is G5-15.
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748
Mr. Secretary, can it can it truthfully be said that not one of the
Asian American employees is suitable for senior positions and none
can be found in the community at large? Until this inequitable situ-
ation is remedied it cannot be asserted as the President does in his
Proclamation for the Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week that
We have successed in removing the barriers to full partici-
pation in American life
The Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week, may 4-10, 1979, is now being
observed throughout the U.S. We call upon you, the Secretary of State,
together with with the AID Administrator, the Director of USICA and
Mr. T. Erlich, to make a special effort to rectify this inequitable
situation. For this purpose we would like to hold quarterly meetings
with you or your designee to establish specific goals and to assess
the progress being made in changing the Asian American profile in the
foreign affairs agencies.
We look forward to a continuing dialogue with you.
Executive Committee
Jose Armilla, ICA
Elliott Chan, State
Frances Chan, AID
George Wakiji, AC:ION
cc:
Senator Frank Church
Senator Daniel Inouye
Senator Spark Natsnaga
Senator Alan Cranston
Representative N. n:ineta
Representative Robert :Matsui
Representative Daniel Akaka
Representative Cecil Heftel
Ambassador I.E. Reinhardt
Mr. T. Erlich
Mr. Robert looter
Ms. Laura Chin, President, APAFEC
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Mr. Wayne Ching
c/o Mr. John Welty
A. I. D.
Room 3643, N. S.
Dear Mr. Ching:
Secretary Vance has asked me to reply to your letter of
May 4, 1979 regarding employment of Asian Americans in
the Department. I regret the delay but recent weeks have
been a particularly busy time for my office. My reply
is necessarily limited to the Department as we do not
keep minority data on other departments and agencies. I
suggest, therefore, that you write directly to AID and
ICA for details on their' programs.
We share your concern about the lack of representation of
Asian Americans in the Department and the Foreign Service.
In a recent meeting with the Executive Level Task Force
on Affirmative Action the Secretary reaffirmed his strong
support for the goals of the EEO program. This includes
his keen desire to see more minorities serving as Deputy
Assistant Secretaries. It is still too early to see the
results of this policy.
The Department recently concluded an agreement with the
American Foreign Service Association on the recommenda-
tion of the Secretary's Executive Level Task Force on
Affirmative Action dealing with the assignment of minori-
ties and women. We expect the new procedures to improve
assignment opportunities for these employees. Again, it
is too early to gauge the results, but we will be monitor-
ing implementation of the recommendations. I'am enclosing
a copy of the revised recommendation for your information.
We need, and want, the help of your organization in our
two Affirmative Action Hiring Programs: the Junior Officer
Program for minorities and the Mid-Level Program for minori-
ties and women. Twelve of our Asian American'officers
entered the Department as Reserve Officers through the
Junior Officer Program. Five of them have been commissioned
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as Foreign Service Officers. The remaining seven will
become eligible for Foreign Service officer appointments
upon successful completion of the lateral entry examina-
tion. Most of them do not have enough service to be
eligible at this time. Minority employees hired under
the Affirmative Action Junior Officer Program since
January 1, 1979 will not be required to take a lateral
entry examination.
Two Asian Americans have entered ..he Department under the
Mid-Level Program. They will be eligible for appointments
as. Foreign Service officers upon successful completion of
the lateral entry examination. We could certainly use the
assistance of your organization in publicizing both of these
programs in the Asian American community. I an enclosing a
copy of the latest announcement of both programs for your
information (Tab B).
I am also enclosing for your information an analysis of
time in class for Asian American employees in the Depart-
ment - both Foreign Service and Civil Service (Tab C).
I would be pleased to meet with you and representatives of
your organization. If you will give me a call on 632-9294
we can set up a mutually agreeable date.
I hope this information will be helpful to you. if I can
furnish any additional data, please let me know.
John A. Burroughs, Jr.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Equal Employment opportunity
1. Tab A - Revised Recommendations
2. Tab B - Junior Officer and Middle-Level
Program Announcements
3. Tab C - Analysis
cc: Honorable Alan Cranston
'United States Senate
Wshington, D. C. 20510
Mr. Elliott K. Chan, President
Office of International Narcotics Control
INM, Room 7811, N. S,
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Recom
No. Text of Recommendation
65. Give "stretch assignments" to Foreign Service persons in EEO
categories.
Assure that qualified Foreign Service personnel in EEO categories
be reviewed with special consideration for "stretch assignments"
to make certain that these groups are not excluded by criteria
based on discriminatory, non-job related factors.
65. - 67. Revision agreed to by the Department and AFSA through mediation
assistance of the Disputes Panel:
Concerted efforts will be made to assure that Foreign Service
personnel in EEO categories are afforded equitable consideration
for all vacancies for which they are equally qualified, notably
career-enhancing positions.
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SECRETARY'S EEECGTIVE-LEVEL TASK FORCE OR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
NO. Proposed Implementations Office (a) Date s
65. - 67. (a) PER/FCA and CCA career development officers must inform PER/FCA Ongoing
themselves fully concerning the identity, skills, PER/CCA
performance and onward assignment preferences of EEO
category counselees. All EEO category personnel must
be made aware of the identity of their career develop-
ment officer and must be urged to make their skills,
training and assignment preferences known. This is
particularly important for FSR, FSRU and FSS personnel
who may have had less contact with the counseling system.
(b) Assignment officers in cooperation with career develop- PER/FCA Ongoing
ment office s will identify forthcoming assignments,
including career-enhancing assignments, for which an
EEO candida_e is currently or potentially qualified after
compar4.son of requirements with candidates' qualifications,
desires and aptitude for training, and assignment
preference.
(c) In discissing with a bureau or post the proposed PER/FCA Ongoing
assignment of an EEO category Foreign Service employee,
an assignment officer may so identify that employee if
(1) the assignment would be to a career-enhancing
positi:n, or (2) that bureau has very few EEO category
Foreign Service personnel in the category or at the level
under review. All qualified personnel, including EEO
category personnel, should be proposed together to the
assignments panel or responsible assignment officer.
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Recom
No. Proposed Implementations
Responsible Target
Office (s) Date s
65. - 67. (d) PER/FCA and PER/CCA Office Directors are charged with PER/FCA' Ongoing
(con't) insuring that career development officers and assign- PER/CCA
ment officers identify qualified and interested EEO
category personnel. However, first-line responsibility
for this effort must rest with career development
officers. When candidates are deemed unqualified for
assignments due to insufficient education or training,
the career development officer should advise the
candidate accordingly, and suggest training which would
enable the candidate to upgrade his/her level of com-
petence and performance and thereby enhance his/her
qualifications for more demanding assignments.
(e) `VDCP and H/EEO will review assignments with assistant M/DGP Annually
secretaries annually to ascertain the degree to which M/EEO
minorities and women have received equitable considera-
tion for assignments, including those to career-
enhancing positions. M/EEO will report the findings
to the Under Secretary for Management. A copy of the
report will be provided to AFSA.
(f) For GS employees only:
Since movement of a CS employee to a new position requires
that the individual apply for the position, it is
essential that position vacancies receive extensive
publicity: bulletin boards, circular notices to offices,
and contacts by counselors with EEO and other category
candidates.
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754
TIME-IR-GRADE STATISTICS FOR CURRENT ASIAN AMERICAN EMPLOTLLB
!FINE IN
GRADE
1
2
3
4
S
G A LAS
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
19
1YROft LS
1
1
0.
!0.
YR
1
MO
MO-
3 YR
Mu
MO
?
f
.
1
1
!i0
MO
2-
1
5 R
2
6 YR
2
i
.
1
1
7 YR
8 YR
l
I
)
9 YR
10 YR
11 YR
1
12 YR
13 YR
14 YR
TOTALS (16)
1
4-.
1
8
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755
TIM;-IN-GRADL STATISTICS FOR CURRENT ASIAN AMERICAN [MPLOTLCS
TIME IN
GRADE
1
7
3
5
DE CLAS
11
12
13
11
15
16
17
I YA ON LS
3
2
2
5
M
YR
M
MO
M0.'
1
1
3 YR
3 0
0
1
MO
4 YR
3 No
MO
NO
5 YR
6 YR
1
i
7 YR
S YR
!
!
9 YR
22 R
1 YR
2 YR
13 YR
1'4 YR
TOTALS (31)
1 -
3-.-
7
5
6
9
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756
TIN;-IIP-GRADE STATISTICS FOR CURRENT ASIAN AMERICAN EMPLOYEES
VINE
GRADE
1
2
3-1
4
5
.RADE LASS I
11
12
13
14
15
16
'.7
It
1 YRORL
2
NO.
NO.
2 YR
4
6 MO
0
3 YR
MO
1
MO
MO
R
NO
MO
5 YR
6 YR
1
1
t
7 YR
1
I
I
S YR
9 YR
10 YR
1 YR
12 YR
13 YR
t
t
14 YR
I
AL5 (24)
1
1
,
-
4
3
6
2
3
1
1
ti
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TINR-IN-GRADS STATISTICS FOR CURRENT ASIAN AMERICAN LMPLOYSLS
AS OF 5/31/79
PAY PLAN GS (Civil Service)*
TIME IN
GRADE
2
3
4
5
AO LAS
11
17
3
14
1
6
7
0
1 YROR LS
1
3
1
5
3
8
1
;0
2
4
O.
7 ,
YR
i0
1
MO
NO
3 YR
3 NO
2
NO
9 MO
1 R
1
N
1
No
1
5 R
6 YR
1
1
7 R
'
1
)
S YR
9 YR
1
0 YR
II, YR
1
2 YR
13 YR
14 YR
l
TOTALS (51)
1__
3
3
131
7
2
5
11
3
1
2
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758
September 12, 1978
Mr. Robert H. Hooter
Deputy Administrator
Agency for International Development
Washington, D.C. 20523
For three successive Affirmative Action Plans there has been one target
that could be unequivocably measured: the appointment of women and
minorities to selected executive positions. For three successive years
the Asian American group has been treated differently from other groups.
One might now be tempted to call it "a pattern of discrimination."
This is further underscored by the lack of any Asian Americans selected
for long term training for-the past six years at least, and the declining
numbers of Asian Americans employed by AID.
In the FY 77 AAP, Asian Americans were the only group whose executive
level targets were limited by the word "or" -- all other groups were
additive -- i.e., Mission Directors and -- not or -- Office Directors.
We were assured by the previous Administrator that every effort would be
made to overfulfill the target. Result: one Asian American was appointed
Deputy Mission Director -- less than half fulfillment of the target.
In the FY 78 AAP this pattern was repeated and in addition "demoted" to
Deputy Mission Director or Office Director. Again, the only group
stigmatized by "or". This Chapter sent a letter to the Administrator
on March 27, 1978, protesting this pattern, but to date we have not
received an answer or an acknowledgement of receipt of our letter.
The draft FY 79 AAP reports that while several. other executive targets
were overfilled, the Asian American target was again unfulfilled. In
the FY 79 AAP, though only a draft, the FY '7 pattern is again repeated
for the third time.
While the targets for other groups are overfulfilled, the Asian American
group now has not even.one appointment at the senior level. While FSR-3s
and even an FSR-4 were and are appointed to executive level positions,
none of the Asian American FSR-3s, of which there are seven, and a GS-15-
who was recently sent to senior management training have been so appointed
- - notwithstanding the FY 78 AAP objective to fill positions, whenever
possible and appropriate, with on-board employees (particularly minorities
and women) in preference to outside hire. (4.2.1.8).
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In light of the lack of past fulfillment of Asian American targets, we request
the appointment
1. in PY 1978 of one Asian American as Deputy Mission Director or
Office Director, and
a) one mission Director or Deputy Mission Director, and
b) one Office Director
from among the Asian Americans now in AID. In light of past experience, we
feel this request is readily achievable, modest and minimal. We hope that
this minimum request can be overfulfiiled in the same way that some targets
of other groups were overfulfilled in PY 19781
Wayne Ching
Chapter President
cc:
14s. P. Johnson, Director, EOP
Ma. Juanita Lott, President, APAPEC
Senators D. Inouye
S..Matsunaga
A. Cranston
Representatives: N. Mineta
D. Akaka
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760
INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE FEDERAL CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT'
PATRICIA A. TAYLOR
Sneer Briar College: Universin, of Virginia
An analysis of income inequality by race and sex within the federal civil service yields three
findings of importance for income attainment and human capital research. First, large
differences in salary between minority/sex groups remain after occupational stream and a
number of employment-related variables are controlled. Second. institutionalized
discrimination explains only one-half of these salary differences. Finally. within the federal civil
serv ice, the pay structures of minority and nonminority women are more similar to each other
than are the pay structures of any other two groups of employees.
The federal civil service, this nation-s
largest employer, has maintained by law a
merit system of employment since the
passage of the Civil Service Act in 1883.
The initial impact of this legislation was to
remove 10% of government jobs from
political patronage and to establish a civil
service in which employees were to be
hired and promoted on the basis of job-
related qualifications and merit. As of
1977. approximately 93% of all federal
civilian employees were subject to merit
regulations. A large body of executive or-
ders and public laws now require that per-
sonnel actions in the federal civil service
be free from discrimination on the basis of
race, religion, national origin (Executive
Order 8587. 1940: Executive Order 11478,
1969: and Public Law 92-261. 1972). sex
(Executive Order 11478. 1969: and Public
Law 92-261. 1972), and age (Public Law
93-259. 1974).
Given this long history of regulations
" Address all communications to: Patricia A.
Taylor: Department of Sociology: University of Vir-
ginia: Charlottesville. VA 22903.
The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful
criticisms of two anonymous reviewers at the ASR:
the comments of Nathan Kantrowitz. Murray
Milner. Robert Stump. and Paul Wilkens the pro-
gramming assistance of Dale Child and Paul Twohig:
and the preparation of the manuscript by Gail
Wooten Votaw. Part of this research was conducted
under VIE-G-78-t1IXr- a research grant from the De-
partment of Health. Education. and Welfare. The
findings and opinions expressed are those of the au-
thor and should not be construed as representing the
opinions or policies of any reviewer, or any agent,
of the federal government.
prohibiting employment discrimination, as
well as the role of the federal government
as a model employer (Mosher, 1965:
170-I). we would expect that the federal
civil service would show less income in-
equality between minority/sex groups
than the private sector. and some limited
research tends to support this expectation
(Smith. 1976). Moreover, as the federal
bureaucracy is the instrumental organ for
the implementation of federal laws and
regulations, it is more sensitive to both
congressional scrutiny and public criti-
cism than the private sector, and thus
more likely to enforce nondiscrimination
laws. Finally, a number of federal services
such as the biennial census, income tax
collection. interstate commerce regula-
tion. etc.. are provided by no other orga-
nizations. Therefore. agencies of the fed-
eral government cannot argue that dis-
criminatory clientele would go elsewhere
if the agencies should hire and advance
minorities and women. Thus, equal em-
ployment opportunity should be im-
plemented in the federal civil service. if
anywhere.
This paper examines data on the federal
civil service to address three questions of
major importance in studies of income in-
equality: 11) within one employment con-
text. how much income inequality by race
and sex exists: 121 what amount of income
inequality might he attributed to employer
discrimtnatiort: and t31 how much income
inequality by race and sex remains after
placement into job streams is controlled?
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Income Ille(poorlilr in LmPlovnte,N
Numerous studies in human capital
analysis and in the status attainment liter.
ature have pointed to the importance of
education. years of work experience, and
other labor market variables as determi-
nants of income attainment (Becker. 1957:
Becker and Chiswick, 1966: Duncan,
1969; Mincer. 1970: Kluegel. 1978: Oax-
aca. 1973: and Smith. 1976). Generally.
three underlying themes have emerged
from studies of income inequality.
First, there is an assumption that differ-
ent rewards given to different race, sex. or
ethnic groups for equal amounts of educa-
tion, experience, etc., may be prima facie
evidence of the failure to apply the princi-
ple of achievement in a universal manner.
Adherence to the principle of achievement
rather than ascription requires that work-
ers be evaluated on the basis of their pro-
ductivity rather than on the basis of race.
sex, or other ascribed characteristics.
Hence, human capital analysis as formu-
lated by Schultz (1961) and Becker (1964)
has received widespread attention not
only because of its theoretical and
methodological parallel to analyses of
physical capital, but also because of its
intuitive appeal to an egalitarian argument
in studies of income inequality. A growing
body of research in this area has found,
for example, that blacks receive a lower
return to education than do whites
(Becker. 1966: Weiss. 1970: Harrison. 1972.
Jencks, 1972: Welch, 1973: and Kluegel.
1978); that women receive a lower return
to education than do men (Malkiel and
Malkiel. 1973: Oaxaca. 1973): that. net of
education and other job-related variables
women and blacks receive lower salaries
than do men and whites (Suter and Miller.
1973; Smith. 1976): and that the quality of
schooling may not account for much of the
difference in returns to education (Weiss.
1970).
The issue of achievement versus ascrip-
tion has undergone increasing scrutiny by
a number of researchers (cf. Butler. 1976),
especially when the concept of structural
and/or institutional discrimination is in-
voked to explain income inequality. Ex-
planations of inequalities among groups
often make use of the concept (if institu-
tional discrimination. as distinct from in-
dividual raci Initial appointments will not be longer for any individual than time
to reach age 60/current remaining Time-ImClass/expiration of
existing limited appointment
?0* Or other period between I and 5 years set by Secretary
3 YEAR
CAREER
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FOREIGN SERVICE - TRANSITION TO SFS/SUBSEQUENT
. CAREER PROGRESSION
III. Current FSO/R/RU - Ys
CURRENT
FSO/R/RU
2's
I
ELECT NOT
TO
OPT IN
3 YEARS
TO LEAVE
FOREIGN
SERVICE
ELECT
- TO tat-III-
OPT IN
TIME IN INITIAL
CURRENT CLASS* SFS APPOINTMENT **
3-4 YEARS
0-2 YEARS
3 YEARS
4 YEARS
5 YEARS
? IWtrtiee - Time in curret doss dart-ir s length of inital SFS
appoirttmwt. Tem, determined to that one-third of current chin
m each group. to stooge a pirtion data of initial appointment,.
ee initial appointmanu will not be longer for my individual than time
to reach age fig/current remabtbp-Tintsit-Class/eopution of
e?iting hmhed appointment
?e~ Or other period btween I ertd 5 year, nt by Sanity
AFTER INITIAL
SFS APPOINTMENT:
1. MANAGEMENT
SETS
NUMBER OF
EXTENSIONS
2. SELECTION
BOARDS:
-RECOMMEND
CAREER
EXTENSION OR
-NO EXTENSION
RETIREMENT
WITH
IMMEDIATE
ANNUITY
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D. 6. Question: Would you please explain section 2101(b),
which seems to state that if a reserve or staff
officer is willing to misrepresent the true state
of his or her commitment to world-wide availability,
he or she will be converted to the Foreign Service?
Aren't you simply stating that if a reserve or
staff officer changes his or her mind about world-
wide availability, the Service will accept him or
her? What time period is involved here? Why is
this section necessary?
Answer: 2101(b) permits retention in the Foreign
Service of those "domestic" personnel who accept
world-wide availability for assignment as a required
condition of employment, and for whom there is a
certified need in the Foreign Service. This section
is needed to sort those employees who presently have
FSR, FSRU, and FSS appointments but who are not
required to be world-wide available for assignment.
Admittedly, there is always the possibility of mis-
representation. Those employees who are permitted
to convert to the new Foreign Service under section
2101(b) will do so with the full knowledge that they
are obligated to accept overseas assigtitnents, and
that there are overseas positions which they are
qualified to fill. In these circumstances, the like-
lihood of early overseas assignment should prove a
deterrent to misrepresentation.
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D.7. Question: Please describe the problem of conver-
sion of ICA employees who are covered by an existing
union agreement (Section 2103(b)). How long will
this conversion take?
Answer: The proposed legislation states that all
Foreign service domestic specialists in USICA shall
be converted mandatorily to the Civil Service after
July 1, 1981, with preservation of pay grade and
benefits including retirement (Sections 2103(b),
2103(b)). If this provision becomes law, then the
conversion process would be completed by June 30,
1984.
The problem seen by USICA and AFGE with this
provision is that it would overtake an agreement
negotiated between them in December 1977 which pro-
vided that all conversions from Foreign Service to
Civil Service would be voluntary, by right until
June 30, 1981, and under prevailing requirements
and conditions established for conversion after
that date. (Copy attached, see pages 3-5, para-
graph 5.)
The Department believes that the proposed
legislation honors the spirit of this agreement, in
that existing pay, grade, and benefits would be pre-
served by law; this preservation of existing rights
was not contemplated at the time the agreement was
made, and provides totally new circumstances. It
also believes that there are considerable advantages
in moving to a coherent dual FS/GS system as rapidly
as possible, after a transition period of three
years, rather than relying only on voluntary move-
ment which was estimated by Ambassador Reinhardt in
his testimony on June 29 as requiring 15 to 25 years.
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Circular
r 487D &-486F
~j4cetnh~er l9, 17f
SUBJECT: Revised Personnel System
1. Purpose
The Agency has 'negotiated with AFGE, the exclusive bargaining
representative for USIA's Foreign Service employees, a revised
personnel system that will replace the Foreign Affairs Specialist
(FAS) program. The purpose of this Circular is to announce the
revised personnel system.
Agency Circular 460D and 459F, dated June 18, 1976, inlnrined
employees that the special Foreign Affairs Specialist conversion
program would terminate on September 30, 1976. In the future
the Agency will operate under two personnel systems; Civil Service
rules and regulations for employees who are primarily United
States based and Foreign Service rules and regulations for those
who are primarily overseas based.
All employees in the United States and American employees abroad
will be identified as being in one of the following personnel categories:
a. Foreign Service Generalist (10) -- Foreign Service Information
Officers, Foreign Service Reserve Officer Unlimited (Generalist),
Foreign Service Staff Officers (Generalist) and Foreign Service
Limited Reserve Officers (FSIO Candidates) who are available
for and expected to serve primarily abroad in such positions as
Public Affairs Officers, Cultural Affairs Officers and Infor-
mation Officers and on rotation in the United States.
b. Foreign Service Overseas Specialist (OS) -- Foreign Service
Reserve Officers -- Unlimited (Specialist), Foreign Service
Staff Officers (Specialist) and Foreign Service Limited Reserve
Officers (Specialist) who are available for and expected to serve
both abroad and in the United States in a Specialist position which
.is part of an overseas -- U.S. rotational system. Positions in
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this system include Radio Engineers at VOA Radio .Relay
Stations, Printing Specialists at Regional Service Centeye,
VOA Correspondents, VOA Technical Monitors, Foreign
Service Secretaries, Regional Librarians, Regional English
Teaching Officers, BNC Directors of Courses, certain
Publications Officers and certain Audio-Visual Officers.
Domestic Specialists (DS) -- Civil Service Personnel (GS and
Wage Board), Non-citizens, Foreign Service Reserve Officers
Unlimited (Specialist), Foreign Service Staff Officers
(Specialist) and Foreign Service Limited Reserve Officers
(Specialist) who are assigned to a position in the United States
and are expected to continue to serve in the United States.
This category includes all employees who are not designated
as Foreign Service Generalists or Foreign Service Overseas
Specialists.
Employees will be notified of the category into which they have
been placed. They may request the Office of Personnel
Services, Domestic Personnel Division for U.S. based em-
ployees, and Foreign Service Personnel Division for overseas
based employees, to review the identification if they believe they
have been placed in the wrung category.
3. Designation of Positions
Subject to later review, all American positions abroad will retain
their current designations as generalist or specialist positions.
All positions in the United States will be designated as being in
one of the following position categories: .
a. Generalist Positions (10) --Most USIS officer positions over=
seas which are staffed by Foreign Service Information Officers
and other Foreign Service Generalist officers and positions
in the United States where field experience in general prograin
activities is more significant than continuity in the job or
knowledge and skill in a specialized activity. (This would also
include positions to which an FSIO could be assigned in order
to diversify his/her experience and/or acquire skills that would
be beneficial in future overseas assignments. )
b. Overseas Specialist Positions (OS) -- Specialist positions at
USIS posts and media extensions overseas staffed by Foreign
Service specialist officers and positions in the United States
which are part of an overseas -- U.S. rotational system
where continuity in the job or knowledge and skill in a specialized
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984
activity are more important than field experience in general
program activities.
Domestic Specialist Positions (DS) -- All positions located
in the United States other than those identified for staffing
by Foreign Service Generalist or Foreign Service Overseas
Specialists.
In order to expedite-the filling of vacancies, position descriptions
covering vacant positions will receive priority attention insofar
as classification of the position is concerned. Managers who,
with to propose a change in position designation should address
their requests, including the rationale for the proposed change,
through their Administrative Office to the Office of Personnel
Services for review and decision.
4. New Hires
The appointment procedures and requirements and the personnel
category of each new hire will be determined by the Agency's
intent in employing the applicant. Applicants intended to fill
Foreign Service generalist positions will be appointed under
Foreign Service personnel authorities as Foreign Service Limited
Reserve Officers (FSIO candidate) and those for Foreign Service
overseas specialist positions as Foreign Service Limited Reserve
Officer (OS Candidate) or Foreign Service Staff (FS Secretary).
These appointment procedures and Foreign Service personnel
authorities will be used regardless of whether the first assignment
of the Foreign Service generalist or overseas specialist is in the
United States or abroad. Domestic specialists will be appointed
under Civil Service personnel authorities as General Schedule.
Wage Board and non-citizen personnel will continue to be appointed
under appropriate hiring authorities. It is the Agency's intent that
candidates as domestic specialists whose-papers are submitted to
the Office of Security for processing on or after December 1, 1977,
will be individuals selected for appointment through regular Civil
Service procedures.
Conversion from FS to CS will be entirely voluntary at the option
of the employee. 1l'SLR (Specialists) who choose to remain in the
Foreign Service may apply for conversion to FSRU and, if eligible,
that conversion will be approved and processed.
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Upon receipt of an application from FS employees for conversion
to GS, in accordance with the procedures described in section 4
of this Circular, the following steps will be taken:
a. Eligibility for Competitive Status -- A determination will be
made as to whether the employee has eligibility for conversion
to career or career-conditional status in Lhc competitive
service and the statutory or regulatory authority for that eligi-
bility. (See note below. )
Availability of Position -- The employee must encumber or be
proposed for a domestic position which is within an element's
authorized personnel ceiling,
level in accordance with CSC classification standards.
d. Qualification SLandards-- A determination will be made as to
whether t:he employee meets the CSC qualification standards
for the position as published in X-118.
Position Classification -- The domestic position encumbered
by the employee will be classified at the appropriate GS grade
subject to a certification by the I-lead of the Office or Service
that there is a continuing need for the employee in the position
and the employee's services have been satisfactory.
Salary Determination --
(1) When the employee is receiving a rate of pay cynal to a
rate in the grade in which the position is placed, the pay
will. he fixed at that rate,
When the employee is receiving a rate of pay that falls
between two rates of. the grade in which the position is
placed, the pay will be fixed at the higher of the two rates.
Whcn the. employee is receiving a rate of pay below the
mininnun rate of the grade in which the position is placed,
the pay will b,! increased to the minimum rate.
When the employee is receiving a rate of pay above the
maximum rate of the grade in which the position is placed,
the pay will be decreased to the maximum rate or, as
explained in the note below, if the Civil Service Commission
approves our request to bring a group of excepted positions
into the competitive service, the employee will be entitled
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to retain the former rate as long as lie/she remains con-
tinuously in the same position or in a position of higher
grade in the Agency.
These conversion rules will remain in effect until June 30, 1981.
It is felt that this three and one half year period provides a
reasonable time for present FS employees to decide whether they
wish to convert to GS or to remain in the Foreign Service. Con-
version to GS after June 30, 1981, will be subject to whatever
requirements and conditions may be established at that time for
conversion.
NOTE: The Agency has sent a letter to the Civil Service Com-
mission proposing that all positions except those normally
in Schedules A, B, or C occupied by FAS employees be
brought as a group from the excepted service (Foreign
Service) to the competitive service (Civil Service). If
the Commission approves our request, we will have a way
to accord competitive status to FAS employees who have
no career rights who apply for conversion to GS and meet
the Civil Service qualification standards for the position
they occupy. It will also provide for salary retention if
the employee is receiving a rate of pay above the maxi-
mum rate of the grade in which the position is placed.
Promotion
After conclusion of the 1977 Foreign Service Specialist Selection
Boards, there will no longer be annual selection boards for Foreign
Service personnel in the domestic specialist category. The Agency's
Merit Promotion Plan, as it affects GS and FS employees, will be
renegotiated with AFGE to provide similar treatment of General
Schedule and Foreign Service personnel in Lie domestic specialist
category as follows:
a. Career Ladder Promotion -- Promotions to the full performance
level (CS or FS) of the position will be by recommendation of
the supervisor to the Office of Personnel Services.
b. Merit Promotion -- Promotion above the full performance level
and to supervisory levels will be by posting of vacancy announce-
ments, application of interested employees (CS and FS), review
by ad hoc promotion panels, and certification of the best quali-
fied candidates. The candidate selected from the merit promo-
tion certificate would be moved to the new position and promoted
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to the grade of that position. If the successful candidate is
GS, he/she will be promoted to the posted GS grade. If the
successful candidate is FS, he/she may choose to be converted
to the posted GS grade or to remain in the FS and be promoted
to the equivalent FS class.
The revised Merit Promotion plan will be published and become
operative as soon as agreement is reached between the Agency and
recognized employee unions.
Annual selection boards will continue to he convened for promotion
consideration of officers in the Foreign Service generalist and the
Foreign Service overseas specialist personnel categories.
Until changed, the current rules governing selection-out for per-
formance or time-in-class will continue to apply to Foreign Service
Information Officers and to Foreign Service Unlimited Reserve
Officers in the generalist or the overseas specialist categories.
With respect to Foreign Service Unlimited Reserve Officers in the
domestic specialist category, the determination of failure to meet
standards of performance and recommendation for selection-out
would be made by the supervisor based upon position requirements
described in the officer's evaluation report rather than by selection
boards. The criteria for identifying Foreign Service Unlimited
Reserve Officers (DS) for selection-out consideration and the pro-
cedures to be followed will be negotiated with AFGL. The ten-year
waiver period established in MOA V-A/V-B-1000 would continue to
apply to those domestic specialists who are serving under this
exemption. Also for the domestic specialist category, the current
time-in-class standards published in MOA V-A/V-B-1000 would
continue.
8. Conversion of General Schedule to Foreign Service Generalist or
Overseas Specialist
General Schedule employees who apply for and are selected to serve
overseas in a Foreign Service generalist or Foreign Service overseas
specialist position will be converted to the appropriate Foreign
Service class and step level in accordance with the conversion table
in Attachment A. The same table will be used for Wage Board
employees after their hourly rates have been converted to an annual
salary.
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988
Application for Conversion from FS to GS
FAS employees in the domestic specialist category who wish to
apply for conversion to the competitive service as a General
Schedule employee should complete the application form (IA-1087)
provided as Attachment B.
Employees of the Voice of America should mail the form to:
Personnel Management and Counseling Branch/VOA
Room 3521, HEW-North
All other employees should mail the form to:
Personnel Management and Counseling Branch
Room 649 - 1776 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.
Additional copies of Form IA-1087 may he obtained from these
personnel offices.
The time limit for submitting applications for conversion to General
Schedule under the conditions described in this Circular is
June 30, 1981.
DISTRIBUTION: X - All Employees in U.S.
(1 - All Americans Overseas
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D.8. Question: Please explain Section 2204 regarding
attorneys fees in back pay cases.
Answer: Section 2204 would afford authority for
the award to Service personnel of attorneys' fees
when successfully appealing from personnel actions as
was recently afforded with respect to Civil Service person-
nel under Section 702 of the Civil Service Reform Act of
1978 (P.L. 95-454).
Foreign Service personnel entitled to claim
attorneys fees in egregious cases would be those who
successfully appeal their removals, suspensions without
pay, withdrawal or reduction of pay, allowances, or dif-
ferentials, or from an agency's omission or failure to
take an action or confer a benefit.
E.1. Question: What happens if the Department wishes to
keep someone who has reached the age of 60?
Answer: Under section 836(b) of the bill (as under
section 631 of the 1946 Act), the Secretary may retain a
career member of the Foreign Service beyond age 60 for
up to five years if the Secretary determines this is in
the public interest. In addition, Foreign Service personnel
who reach age 60 while serving under Presidential appoint-
ments to positions are exempted from mandatory retirement
until the expiration of such appointments.
E.2. Question: What is the difference between career
non-career members of the Senior Foreign Service?
Answer: Career members of the Senior Foreign Service
TIT be those who have been granted tenure under the
new rules and appointed by the President, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate. In short, they
are those present FSO's and world-wide available FSRUs
who would be converted to the SFS.
There will be two types of non-career members of the
SFS. The first will be those who are specifically
hired in expectation of eventually being tenured.
The second type consists of other individuals whose
services are required only for a limited tenure.
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E.3 Question: Please describe the composition and
operations of the so-called "tenure boards".
Answer: Under existing law, the tenure board
procedure has been in operation for junior level
Foreign Service officers since mid-1978. Career
candidates are initially accepted for a trial
period subject to selection after demonstrated
performance for a career appointment. The tenure
board of this program recommends candidates for
career tenure. It is made up of five career
Foreign Service officers. There is a chairperson
and a representative of each of the four mid-career
functional cones, political, consular, economic/com-
mercial and administrative. The sixth member of
this board is designated by the Office of Personnel
Management. This seat on the Commissioning and
Tenure Board will rotate among the federal agencies
concerned with the work of the Foreign Service.
The board members are all stationed in Washington
and serve three-year terms. The board meets to
consider candidates for tenure whenever there is a
sufficient case load of people eligible for review.
The Commissioning and Tenure Board is charged
with evaluating the personnel records of the candidates
to determine if they have demonstrated the abilities
to do successful work up through mid-career as a
Foreign Service officer. The rules of procedure of
the board require the affirmative vote of four of
the six members to grant tenure; there is no quota
of candidates that the board must accept or reject.
Each candidate for tenure is reviewed by the
board once a year after having completed two years
on the job. Candidates must achieve tenure before
the expiration of the limited appointments of four
years.
In the proposed legislation, section 322
authorizes continuing these same operations of the
Commissioning and Tenure Board and expands this
concept to cover all career appointments in the
Foreign Service. Tenure boards, following the same
principles and having similar rules of procedure as
the Commissioning and Tenure Board, will be created
to review and reject or accept candidates for career
appointments as Foreign Service support or specialist
personnel. These tenure boards are all required by
section 322(d) to be composed entirely or primarily
of career members of the Service.
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E.4. Question: How will limited and temporary appoint-
ments operate and what kinds of jobs are contemplated?
Answer: The limited and temporary appointment author-
ities in Section 331 of the draft Bill parallel and
carry forward existing authorities derived in part
from Section 531 of the 1946 Act (for the staff corps)
and Section 522 (for the Foreign Service Reserve).
While Section 331 is more general than its predeces-
sors, it continues to provide protection for the
basic career structure of the Foreign Service, by
limiting all such appointments to no more than five
years.
Limited appointments will be used, as now, for
two purposes: To provide the ability to hire non-
career individuals for short periods to meet specific
needs which cannot be met from within the Service;
and to serve as a career candidate appointment, com-
parable to GS probationary and career conditional
appointments, for individuals who will become career
members of the Service, if their performance is
acceptable.
Temporary appointments serve the first of these
pruposes, in cases where the need for the services
of the employee in question is not expected to
exceed one year.
While there is no limit on the occupational
categories where limited or temporary appointments
can be used, in practice they will be used for
special functional fields (e.g., petroleum attache,
commercial attache) and for appointments of a
political nature (executive assistant or personal
secretary to a non-career ambassador). Unlike
current practice, they will not be used to meet
short-term personnel needs in the United States.
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E.S. Question: What is the difference between the signi-
ficance of diplomatic and consular commissions?
Answer: In current practice, career Foreign Service
personnel who are expected to serve in both diplo-
matic and consular positions during their careers
receive both types of commissions. All Foreign Ser-
vice officers, irrespective of their cone (political,
consular, economic or administrative), receive both
diplomatic and consular commissions at the time they
are appointed as Foreign Service officers. Other
career Foreign Service personnel receive both com-
missions at the time of their initial assignment to
serve abroad in a diplomatic or consular capacity.
Accordingly, these commissions have no significance
with respect to the personnel status, assignments or
career development of the members of the Foreign
Service.
Historically, diplomatic officers were primarily
responsible for the conduct of relations between
nations, while consuls were more concerned with the
welfare of the appointing country's nationals and
its commercial interests. In.modern time, most
countries have developed unified Foreign Service
corps, whose members may be assigned either to dip-
lomatic or consular posts. Considerable overlap has
developed between diplomatic and consular functions.
Nevertheless, international law continues to recog-
nize the differences in the functions, rights, and
status of diplomatic and consular personnel. A
number of U.S. laws (both federal and state), some
dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
similarly recognize distinctions between functions
which may be performed by diplomats and those which
may be performed by consuls. .
A diplomatic or consular commission is evidence
of the authority of the appointee to perform diplo-
matic or consular functions as the case may be.
Under the Constitution, the President commissions
"Ambassadors and other public ministers and consuls",
and the Congress may vest in the Secretary appoint-
ment authority for subordinate officers (i.e., vice
consuls). This is the pattern of the 1946 Act, and
is restated in section 341 of the Bill.
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E.6. Question: Has the provision authorizing the appoint-
ment of a staff officer or employee as vice consul
been carried forward in this legislation?
Answer: The Bill contains an expanded version of
this authority, which is in Section 533 of the 1946
Act. Section 341(a) of the Bill permits such com
missions to be granted to any member of the Foreign
Service who is a United States citizen. For example,
this authority will be available to commission as a
vice consul a Foreign Service officer candidate ser-
ving under a probationary appointment.
E.7(A) Question: In section 322, you. provide for a trial
period of service for incoming Foreign Service officers.
How long is this trial period?
Answer: We contemplate a trial period for candidates
for appointment as Foreign Service officers of four years
with a possible extension in unusual cases of up to one
additional year. The trial period for Foreign service
members will generally be shorter, depending upon occupational
category.
E.7(B) Question: Have you considered authorizing representation
allowances for consular agents where appropriate?
Answer: We have not considered granting representation
allowances to consular agents as a general practice in
the past since for one thing representation allowances
are currently authorized only for U. S. citizens and not
all consular agents are U. S. citizens. The bill does
not limit eligibility for representation allowance to
U. S. citizens, however. This will permit us to consider
granting such allowances to consular agents in the future
should they be required to perform significant representa-
tional responsibilities. (See also the answer to question
K.7.)
E.8. Question: Section 333(b) provides that the
Secretary shall prescribe regulations for the guidance
of all agencies regarding the employment at posts abroad
of family members of government personnel. Does this
include the military as well?
Answer: This provision applies to all elements
of Foreign Service posts, including military components,
which operate under the direction of the chief of mission.
The Secretary's guidance would not apply as a matter of
law to military facilities under the command of a U.S.
area military commander.
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E.9. Question: (A) What benefits including salary, allow-
ances and retirement do you contemplate providing family
members employed under section section 333?
Answer: Section 333 of the bill authorizes either
limited appointments under the Foreign Service Schedule
or under a local compensation plan. The choice will depend
primarily on how the position is normally staffed. Family
members serving under the Foreign Service Schedule will
participate in U.S. social security if appointed for less
than a year and, otherwise, in the Civil Service Retirement
and Disability System. Those serving under local compensa-
tion plans will contribute to U.S. social security. Section
444 of the 1946 Act (section 451 of the bill) was amended
last year to authorize employment of family members under
local compensation plans, theretofore utilized only to
compensate foreign national employees. Local compensation
plans provide for payment of salaries as benefits in accord-
ance with local practices at rates fixed in local currency.
Accordingly, family members employed under this provision
are paid salary and benefits in local currency except, for
retirement purposes, they are placed under the U. S. social
security system.
The Department has established a pilot project at a
limited number of posts to evaluate the effectiveness and
efficiency of this approach to providing employment oppor-
tunities for family members. The results were so minimal
(only two placements requested by early July) that the
Department has made the program worldwide.
Family members are also employed in part-time, inter-
mitte-it and temporary (PIT) positions to perform miscellan-
eous functions for which career personnel are not available.
Salaries for all PIT positions are fixed in U. S. dollars
at American rates. Overseas Allowances and Differentials
are not authorized for personnel employed on a part-time,
intermittent or temporary basis. Accordingly, family members
so employed are not entitled to these allowances. Generally,
they are entitled to retirement and other credit under the
U. S. social security system.
At the present time, OPM regulations governing the
acquisition of career status following appointment from a
register make it difficult for family members accompanying
career employees abroad to obtain status. The Department
has requested discussions with OPM looking toward modifica-
tion of these regulations to facilitate the acquisition of
competitive status by family members employed with the
Government in any capacity.
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E.9. Question: (B) What about retirement annuities for
divorced spouses?
Answer: Retirement annuities would be authorized for
divorced spouses by section 864(b) of this bill. The bene-
fits authorized are identical to those authorized for
divorced spouses of Civil Service employees under Public
Law 95-366. (See the answer to Question A.24.)
E.10. Question: Medical Program - How often are Foreign
Service personnel required to undergo physical
examinations?
Answer: Physical examinations are required for
Foreign Service members and their dependents prior
to their employment. This examination is designed
to ensure that the member will be available for
worldwide assignment without undue jeopardy to the
member's health and to ensure that the USG will be
accepting a member who can perform the projected
duties in an overseas environment.
After entry, physical examinations are required
at two-year intervals or at the completion of a tour
of duty, whichever is longer. This examination is
designed to maintain the health of the Foreign Ser-
vice community and to ensure that there are not
medical conditions which would interfere with or
interrupt the proposed assignments.
Physical examinations are also required upon
separation in order to validate the health of the
individual at time of departure from the Foreign
Service, and to establish qualifications for any
post-separation medical benefits, as provided by
law.
Special examinations may be required to deter-
mine eligibility for medical disability retirement,
continuation of assignment, fitness-for-duty, or such
other examinations as may be medically indicated.
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F.1 Question: Describe the operation, step by step,
of the Selection Board under the new legislation.
How does this differ from present operations?
Answer: As described in the answer to question
A.13 the current practice for selection boards is
to establish criteria for the boards' rank-order
decisions in a series of precepts. These precepts
are developed in consultation with the employee
representative. The boards' procedure for reviewing
employees' performance folders and voting to
determine rank order is controlled through rules of
procedure which are also established in consultation
with the employee representative. Copies of the
precepts and the rules of procedure for the 1979
senior and intermediate selection boards are attached
as examples of the step by step operations of typical
boards.
The selection boards proposed under Section 603
of the new legislation would be essentially the same
as the current boards. They would have the same
major purposes and procedures, and they will continue
to be governed by precepts and rules of procedure
developed by the Department in consultation with the
employee representative.
Under the new law, however, selection boards will
take on several new tasks, and in the case of Senior
Foreign Service members have an, additional source of
information of record to consider in evaluating
performances. These boards may consider records of the
senior officers' present and prospective assignment
status. This information might typically be the record
of the jobs that an officer had requested and of those
jobs which had been offered the officer in the recent
past. It is relevant information as it reflects the
current and projected need for that officer at the
senior levels.
The other proposed changes in selection board
operations are the additional recommendations that
boards may be required to make under the new
legislation. Currently, a typical selection board
rank-orders a competition group and decides which
officers of the class have demonstrated the abilities
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and attitudes to merit promotion. In addition, the
bottom ten percent of the rank-order list is forwarded
to a separate review board to be considered for
selection out for substandard performance. Boards
also have the option to recommend that a periodic
step increase in salary be withheld for unsatisfactory
performance.
Under the proposed legislation, in addition to
the above duties, those boards reviewing The Senior
Foreign Service will be required to make recommendations
for the award of performance pay within the limits
established by Section 441. Selection boards will
also have the responsibility of reviewing those members
of The Senior Foreign Service who will be in their last
year of the time allowed by the applicable time-in-class
regulations, or who are in the last year of a limited
career extension. This review is to determine which
members of that group of officers to recommend to
The Secretary for an offer or renewal of limited
extension of career appointment as provided in Section
641(b) of the new act.
Outside the Senior Foreign Service, selection
boards which review employees who have reached the
highest levels of their pay category will also have
the additional duty to review and recommend those
members of these groups who should be given an initial
or additional limited career extension.
Finally, selection boards may also be assigned
additional functions such as recommending employees
for more than one periodic step increase in recognition
of especially meritorious service.
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Attachment to-Question Fl
The Rules of Procedure Required of the 1979
senior, Intermediate and Specialist Selection Boards
Introductory Note
The Selection Boards will base their recommendations and findings
solely on the materials which are provided by the Office of
Performance Evaluation in accordance with Part Ii.2 of the
General Directives of the 1979 Precepts.
Members of the Office of Performance Evaluation will guide
the Boards in following the technical procedures descrioed
herein.
Step 1, board reviews, votes on and discusses a group of
model cases to practice implementing the ten-point forced
distribution voting procedure, including the procedure
for breaking ties.
Initial Screening
Step 21 Board chair randomly selects and distributes files
of 40 eligible employees.
Step 3s board members review the files, varying the
sequence of review from member to member, and each member
noLinarea those people among the 40 that he or she would
recou.menu for promotion according to the precepts, and
those 6 people that he or she finds least competitive among.
the 40. The Boards are to use their own judgment to
determine how many people_to recommend for promotioior,.
Those who are neither recommended for promotion nor found
least competitive are all considered mid-ranked in their
class, and will not be ranked relative to each other.
Step 4s Nominations are recorded and the files of
those nominated for promotion or designated least
competitive are separated for detailed review.
Step So Steps 2-4 are repeated until all the eligible
employees have been screened.
Detailed Review and Rank-Ordering
Before beginning Step 6 the boards are given an indication of the
number of promotions Management can authorize for each competitive
group in the current promotion cycle.
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Std: Board chair randomly selects and distributes
40 files of those people who have been nominated for
promotion (Step 3).
Step 7: Board members carefully review the files, varying
the sequence of review from member to member, and vote
using the 10-point forced distribution voting procedure.
Step 8: Board members discuss and revote all cases where
the range of votes is greater than 4.
Step 9: Steps 6-8 are repeated until all the files of
people nominated for promotion have been exhausted.
St ep10: Individual Board members may at this point request
authorization of the Board chair to change a previous vote.
The chair has the discretion to authorize this change if
the reason for the change is sanctioned by the precepts and
if the member requesting the change adheres to the force-
ranking system.
Step 11: When all the people have been given scores by the
procedures in Steps 6-10, a single list is prepared, rank-
ordered by score, with an indication of where the number of
promotions available would reach on the list, i.e., the cut-
off point. The Board then reviews again the group of,cases
at the margins of this cut-off point. This group will equal
10 percent of those recommended for promotion (or 10 cases,
whichever is greater) which are divided equally on the rank-
order list by the cut-off point. The Board re-rank-orders
this group of cases around the cut-off point by using forced-
distribution voting, including breaking ties.
Step 12: The Board then breaks any ties remaining in the
rank-order list.
Step 13: Steps 6-10 are repeated for those people who were
designated least competitive in the initial screening.
The Board then rank-orders from the bottom up a number
equal to 20 percent of the people eligible for consideration
by that Board. When'the bottom 20 percent have been rank
ordered the point is established separating the bottom 10
percent from the top 10 percent. This is called the low-
ranking point. .The Board then reviews again the group of
cases at the margins of this low-ranking point. This group
will equal 10 percent of the low 20 percent (or 10 cases,
whichever is greater) which are divided equally on the rank-
order list by the low-ranking point. The Board re-rank-orders
this group of cases around the low-ranking point by using
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forced-distribution voting, including breaking ties.
Step 14: The Board then breaks any ties remaining in the
bottom 20 percent rank-order list.
Step 15: Authorized evaluative material which arrives after
a Selection Board has begun the review of files and before
the Board has established its rank-order lists will be
read by all Board members before voting on the cases
concerned. The Office of Performance Evaluation will pass
such material directly to the Board Chairperson, who will
be responsible for its correct handling. Control sheets
will be established for each file to indicate which Board
members have read a file and to ensure that the new
material is read by all.
Evaluative material which.becomes available after a Board
has established its rank-order lists will not be submitted
to or considered by that session of the Selection Boards.
This circular transmits the Precepts and Special Directives
(Appendixes A, B, C, D, E and F) for the 1979 Foreign
Service Senior, Intermediate and Specialist Selection Boards.
Agreement on these Precepts and Special Directives was reached
with the American Foreign Service.Association on
and approved by the Under Secretary for Management on
1. Major Changes in the Precepts
A. Previously Boards were required to rank order
employees and then indicate which officers
should be promoted. Now Boards are instructed
to first identify employees they deem qualified
for promotion and then rank them based on relative
merit.
B. Boards will continue to receive an indication of
the number of promotions Management can authorize,
but the numbers will not be given to the Boards
until they have identified those employees they
deem qualified for promotion.,
C. Boards will not be required to rank entire classes,
rather they will precisely rank order only employees
qualified for promotion and those in the bottom 20
percent of the class. The remaining officers will
not be ranked.
D. Employees in classes FSR/RU-4 and FSR/RU-5 and FSS
equivalent in the administrative subfunctions of
personnel, general services and budget and fiscal
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will no longer compete jointly with FSOs.
All other FSR/RUs (and FSSs equivalent)
in these classes with generalist skill
codes will continue to compete jointly with
FSOS. Employees with generalist skill codes
and program direction primary skill codes in
classes FSO/R/RU-1, FSO/R/RU-2 and FSO/R/RU-3
will continue to compete jointly for promotion
on Boards I, II and III respectively.
E. Except for Boards IV and V, Boards are
encouraged to prepare counseling statements
for employees ranked in the bottom 20 percent
of the class. As before, all Boards are
required to prepare statements on those ranked
in the low 10 percent or otherwise designated
for selection-out review.
F. Employees ranked in the bottom 20 percent of
the class will be informed of their ranking.
G. The Boards will no longer consider employees
who are not identified in Part I, Section B
of the Precepts.
H. Employees in classes FSS-5 and 6 and FSR/RU-7
and 8 will no longer compete together by com-
parable class, i.e., FSS-5 with FSR/RU-7 and
FSS-6 with FSR/RU-8, but will compete separately
within their individual pay plan and function
or specialty. Classes FSS-7 and 8 will continue
to compete separately.
I. Class 1, 2 and 3 employees with a Program Direction
Primary Skill Code and a Specialist Secondary Skill
Code will compete class-wide on. Boards I, II and
III. In addition, such officers in Class 3 will
also compete in their specialist category on the
appropriate specialist board.
J. The Boards will take the specialized requirements
of the Department and other agencies into account
in determining employees qualified for promotion.
II. Cancellation
This circular supersedes FAMC No. 755 of June 13, 1978.
This circular is automatically cancelled 6 months after the
last Board has been dismissed.
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1002
PRECEPTS FOR THE FOREIGN SERVICE SELECTION BOARDS
PART I - Purpose, Organization and Eligibility
A. Statement of Purpose
Precepts set forth the rules of conduct that Selection Boards
must follow to identify employees qualified for promotion,
to rank them by their relative merit and to identify those
subject to separation proceedings for unsatisfactory or non-
competitive performance.
Precepts are also policy statements of what constitutes
positive and desirable performance by members of the Foreign
Service, or, on the negative side, what is considered undesirable
performance. All Foreign Service employees should, therefore,
be familiar with these Precepts as guides for the performance
of their duties and the development of their careers.
B. Coverage
The Boards will consider the following categories of employees
in accordance with Sections C and D below:
1. Foreign Service Officers (FSOs)
2. Foreign Service Reserve/Foreign Affairs Specialist
Candidates (FSR/FAS)
3. Foreign Service Reserve Employees pending FSO
Conversion
4. Foreign Service Reserve Employees with reemployment
rights with the Department
5. Foreign Service Reserve Employees under State/Commerce
Exchange Program
6. Foreign Service Reserve Employees with Unlimited
Tenure (FSRUS)
7. Foreign Service Staff career employees (FSS)
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The Boards will not consider any other FSR or FSS employee
not listed above. This includes, but is not restricted to,
Schedule C type, FSS Limited and Limited-Indefinite employees.
C. Scope and Organization
1. Senior Boards
a. Board I will review all Class 1 officers (FSOs,
FSRS, FSRUs) on a classwide basis. Officers'
with generalist and program direction primary
skill codes will be reviewed together; officers
with specialist primary skill codes will be
reviewed separately.
b. Board II will review all Class 2 officers (FSOs,
FSRs, FSRUs) with generalist and program direction
primary skill codes together on a classwide basis..
c. Board III will review all Class 3 officers with
generalist and program direction primary skill
codes. Competition will be both on a functional
and classwide basis. Officers who have a program
direction primary skill code and a specialist
secondary skill code will compete classwide on
Board III and in their specialist category on
Board B.
2. Intermediate Boards
Intermediate Selection Boards will consider officers
in classes FSO/R/RU-4 through 8 and FSS--2 through
8. The Boards will be organized as follows:
a. Boards IV and V will consider FSOs, FSR/RUs and
FSSs equivalent with non-specialist skill codes
in classes 4 and 5 (except those FSRS, FSRUs, and
FSSs with non-specialist skill codes in the
administrative subfunctions of personnel, general
Services, and budget and fiscal) by functional
category in two groups, i.e., 'Primary zone" and
"Secondary Zone".
b. Board VI will review tenured officers in classes
FSO/R RU-6 and FSS-4 on a classwide basis.
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c. Board A will consider officers with non-specialist
skill codes in classes FSR/RU-6 through 8 and
FSS 4 through 8 (except those officers in the
Junior Officer and Mustang programs) by functional
category. The Board will also consider those
FSR/RUs in classes 4 and 5 and FSSs in classes 2
and 3 with a non-specialist skill code in the
administrative subfunctions cited in paragraph
2 a. above.
Officers in classes FSR/RU-4 through 6 and FSS-2 through 4
will be considered together by comparable class: FSR/RU-4
with FSS-2; FSR/RU-5 with FSS-3; and FSR/RU-6 with FSS-4.
Officers in classes FSR/RU-7 and 8 and FSS-5 through 8 will
be considered separately by individual pay plan. Review will
be on a functional basis.
3. Specialist Boards
Specialist Boards will consider employees identified
as Specialists in Appendix F of the Precepts in
classes FSO/R/RU-2 through 8 and FSS-l through 8.
Officers in classes FSR/RU-4 through 6 and FSS-2
through 4 will be considered together by comparable
class: FSR/RU-4 with FSS-2; FSR/RU-5 with FSS-3;
and FSR/RU-6 with FSS-4. Officers in classes
FSR/RU-7 and 8 and FSS-5 through 8 will be considered
separately by individual pay plan. The Boards will be
organized as follows:
Board
Category
Classes
B
Specialist
FSO/R/RU 2-4; FSS 1-2
C
Specialist
FSO/R/RU 5-8; FSS 3-8
D
Communications
FSR/RU 3-6; FSS 2-4
E
Communications
FSR/RU 7-8; FSS 5-8
F
Secretarial
FSS 3-6
G
Secretarial
FSS 7-8
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1005
D. Selection Board Consideration
1. Class 1 Officers
FSOs, FSRs, and FSRUs (specialists and non-specialists)
in Class 1 will be eligible for consideration if
appointed or promoted to their present class on or
before July 31, 1976.
2. Class 2 and 3 Officers
FSOs, FSRs, and FSRUs (specialists and non-specialists)
in Classes 2 and 3 will be eligible for consideration
if appointed or promoted to their present class on or
before July 31, 1977.
3. Officers Below Class 3
a. FSOs (excluding specialists) in Classes 4 and 5 and
those FSRs, FSRUs, and FSSs, who compete on Boards
IV and V will be eligible for consideration if
appointed or promoted to their present class prior
to April 15, 1979.
b. Specialists in Classes FSO/R/RU-4 through 8, and
FSS-2 through 8 will be eligible for consideration
if appointed or promoted to their present class on
or before August 31, 1978.
c. Non-Specialists in classes FSR/RU-4 through 8 and
FSS-2 through 8 (except those FSRs, FSRUs, and
FSSs identified in 2 a. above) will be eligible
for consideration if appointed or promoted to their
present class on or before August 31, 1978.
d. Officers in the Junior Officer program of Classes
FSO/R/RU-6 and FSS-4 who have been recommended for
tenure prior to the convening of the Board will
be eligible for consideration.
4. In the case of those employees who converted laterally
from one Foreign Service pay plan to another at a
comparable grade level, time spent in the previous
pay plan will be included in determining eligibility.
Eligibility will be based on the date of last promo-
tion in the previous pay plan.
In the case of those employees who converted
to a different pay plan at a higher grade level,
time spent in the previous pay plan will not be
included in determining eligibility. Eligibility
will be based on the date of conversion to the
present pay plan.
5. All Boards will review separately the files of
ineligible employees to determine if any employees
have demonstrated such outstanding performance and
potential that the time-in-class or time-in-service
eligibility requirements should be waived as provided
in 3 FAM 554.7. This review shall not include the
file of any employee appointed to the Foreign Service
after the closing of the official rating period for
the year under consideration.
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1006
PRECEPTS FOR THE FOREIGN SERVICE SELECTION BOARDS
PART II - GENERAL DIRECTIVES
Selection Boards will be governed by these General Directives
and the appended Special Directives.
A. Major Responsibilities
1. Review the performance records of employees, identify
those qualified for immediate advancement and rank
them on the basis of relative merit.
2. Identify employees to be placed in selection-out zones
and prepare statements giving the reasons therefor.
B. Basis for Promotion
Promotion is recognition that an employee is capable of
performing the duties and responsibilities required at higher
levels. It is not a reward for prior service, although the
performance of present and past duties will usually indicate
the degree to which an employee has developed or is developing
the qualities needed for successful performance at higher levels.
Performance under unusually difficult and dangerous circumstances
is particularly relevant, as is a willingness to risk disciplined
and sensible dissent and the constructive advocacy of policy
alternatives.
C. Basis for Selection Out
Selection out is prescribed when an officer, compared with others
of the same class, fails to maintain the standard required of
that class. All FSOs and some FSRUs are subject to selection
out under Section 633 (a)(2) of the Foreign Service Act. A
Performance Standards Board will make selection-out determina-
tions after reviewing the files of those officers low ranked
by the Selection Boards.
The lowest ten percent of those officers subject to selection
out will be referred to such a Performance Standards Board.
For specialists, this low ten percent will be derived on the
basis of functional competition in all classes. Because of
the rule that the lowest 10 percent of the FSRUs subject to
selection out in any category must be referred to the
.Performance Standards Board, it is possible for an FSRU to
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be promoted and yet fall in the lowest 10, percent of the FSRUs
in that category. In such a case, the officer would not, of
course, be referred to the Performance Standards Board. For
non-specialists in classes 1 and 2 the low ten percent will
be compiled on the basis of a classwide comparison. In class 3
it will be compiled on the basis of functional competition.
In classes 4, 5 and 6 the Boards will identify specific officers
for referral to a Performance Standards Board in accordance
with their Special Directives.
In cases where it is impossible to derive a low ten percent
(competitive groupings of nine or fewer employees subject to
selection out), Boards will identify specific employees to be
referred to a Performance Standards Board.
For each officer subject to selection out ranked in the low 10
percent or specifically identified for referral to a Performance
Standards Board, the Selection Board will prepare a statement
explaining the reasons for the low ranking or the specific
designation. These statements will be made available to a
Performance Standards Board.
D. Decision Criteria
1. Boards should identify those employees who in the Board's
judgment are qualified for promotion at this time.
Boards should consider for immediate advancement those
employees whose records indicate an ability to perform
at a higher level now and who have displayed superior
long-range potential. This is one of the Selection
Boards' most important functions; it should be exercised
with care and discrimination.
Once Boards have identified tho;.e employees qualified for
promotion they should rank these employees on the basis
of relative merit.
In determining an employee's qualification for promotion,
Boards should look for accomplishment or growth in the
following areas: .
a. Substantive knowledge: The degree and level of
sophistication of the employee's knowledge of the area
or function of career concentration, including, where
appropriate, mastery of technical career skills.
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(1) Presence: The employee's self-presentation,
determination, energy, and self-confidence.
(2) Effective Oral Communication: The ability
to speak clearly, sensibly and persuasively in
groups and in direct conversation.
(3) Positiveness: Confidence in oneself and one's
goals despite setbacks and disappointments and
the ability to instill or encourage by example
similar qualities in others.
(4) Negotiating Skill: The ability to present and
defend a set of interests in developing an
agreement or settling a dispute. This skill
includes a capacity to perceive alternative
courses that will satisfy one's own requirements,
but will offer greater acceptability to others.
(5) Foresight: The ability to anticipate problems
and to plan or initiate actions accordingly.
c. Intellectual Skills:
(1) Conceptual Ability: The ability to organize data
sensibly and translate it into practical impli-
cations and to establish rational priorities.
(2) Logical Thinking: The ability to reach sound
conclusions from explicit assumptions and to
communicate the reasons clearly and rationally.
(3) Judgment: The ability to discern relationships
of authority in varying contexts; understanding
the effective range and use of one's own
authority and position to further a desired
goal, including the skill to challenge superiors
effectively if necessary.
(4) Skill in Written Communication: Ability to write
clearly and usefully.
(5) Language Skills: Ability and motivation to learn
foreign languages as a tool for more effective
'performance of one's duties.
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(6) Cultural Sensitivity: The ability to acquire,
understand and interpret clearly the relevant
information regarding another society, its
values, and its institutional processes, and
relate such information to American interests
and objectives.
d. Managerial Skills:
(1) Concern for Influence: Demonstrated aptitude
for guiding others and skill in influencing
events through the actions of others.
(2) Objectivity of Purpose: The placement of job
goals and responsibilities above personal
interests or the desire to simply accommodate
associates or subordinates.
(3) Self-Control: The ability to contain, impulsive
emotional behavior.
(4) Achievement Orientation: Interest in achieve-
ment, in fostering institutional improvements,
in producing highest return at lowest cost.
(5) Operationaj Effectiveness: Reliability in
getting a job done, efficiently, on time and
with mastery of all essential details.
e. Interpersonal Skills:
(1) EEO Effectiveness: Commitment to the principles
of fair treatment and equality of opportunity in
dealings with all persons and awareness of equal
employment opportunity as a fundamental aspect
of good management and of the role of Affirmative
Action in contributing to the Department's equal
opportunity goals and objectives.
(2) Social Sensitivity: The disposition and ability
to solicit and understand the points of view
of others and to respond in a manner that will
gain their cooperation.
(3) Teaching Skill: The ability to teach and guide
others by allowing them initiative and responsi-
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bility without recourse to constant supervision;
and sensitivity to the development needs of
previously disadvantaged persons.
(4) Counseling Skill: The ability to win the
confidence of others and to listen and make
realistic and supportive recommendations.
2. As employees move beyond the starting levels of
their careers, relative weakness in one or more of
the areas listed above should adversely affect the
Boards' determinations asito whether employees are
qualified for immediate advancement.
In addition, any of the following factors should
adversely affect the Boards' determinations as to
whether or not employees are qualified for promotion
and may, of themselves, be grounds for a low-ranking
at any grade level:
a. Reluctance to accept responsibility.
b. Failure to carry out properly assigned tasks
within a reasonable time.
c. Low productivity or work poorly done.
d. Lack of adaptability.
e. Refusal to accept Service discipline.
f. Inability to work fairly and cooperatively with
supervisors, colleagues, or subordinates.
g. Ineffectiveness in managing subordinates.
h. Lack of honesty in assessing performance of
subordinates.
i. Lack of courage and reliability under conditions
of hardship and danger.
E. Equality of Consideration
Boards will compare all employees solely on merit with absolute
fairness and justice. In particular, Boards will not disadvan-
tage any, employee, directly or indirectly, for reasons of race,
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color, religion,. sex, age, national origin, or means of
entry into the Service.
This responsibility is not only that of an equitable
weighing of performance data by the Board, but a positive
discounting of any apparent bias or unfairness, either
conscious or unconscious, in the material reviewed.
The performance rating process must be insulated from
irrelevant or improper influences. Stereotypes, group
assumptions, and sexist or ethnic comments must not affect
evaluations.
If a Board discerns an indication of such unfairness in
a performance file for any reason, it will discount the
statement or implications and refer the matter to the
Director, Office of Performance Evaluation for correction
of the file as appropriate.
F. Other Factors
1. Personal Qualities
Medical problems, personal and physical character-
istics should not be considered unless they affect
performance or potential.
2. Assignments
Training assigments, assignments outside the
Department of State, to the American Institute
in Taiwan, and to international organizations,
and "out-of-function" assignments are important
to an employee's career development. An illus-
trative but not exhaustive list of such assign-
ments would include fields such as science and
technology, narcotics, political-military affairs,
arms control, and public and congressional affairs.
These assignments are essential if the Service
is to develop the kinds of skilled personnel which
are required to meet the demands of modern diplomacy.
Many positions in the Service are multifaceted, and
require an officer experienced in more than one of
these skills. Boards should give credit to
employees who have used such assignments to enhance
their long-term potential. Boards should also know
that all employees assigned to long-term training,
particularly senior training, are selected
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on a competitive basis. Boards should also give
due consideration to employees whose talents are
needed primarily in the United States.
3. Other Agency Needs
There is a continuing need for highly qualified
Foreign Service officers to support the interna-
tional programs and activities of agencies other
than State/AID/ICA. These include in particular
those agencies which, like the Department of
Commerce and Labor, do not have their own personnel
overseas and are dependent upon the unified
Foreign Service in this regard. The Foreign Service
is charged with the responsibility to provide
needed overseas support for the operations of these
agencies. Accordingly, the Selection Boards shall
give credit for service in these specialized areas
and shall take the specialized requirements of these
agencies into account in determining those employees
qualified for promotion.
4. Absence
Boards should rate all employees--including those
absent from their duties--on the basis of the
evaluation material in their files. For employees
on secondment or leave-without-pay, Boards should
give appropriate consideration to evidence that such
employees have used their leave to improve Foreign
Service-related skills.
5. Non-Rates
Boards must rate an employee when all periods of an
employee's service are covered by evaluation reports
(including training reports or justification explain-
ing the lack thereof). Only when the Board is advised
by the Office of Performance Evaluation that a. file
is insufficiently documented may it not rate the
employee. The Boards will prepare a written justifi-
cation in each case.
6. Previous Board Findings
As specified in the Special Directives, a Board may
be informed which of the employees it has found
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qualified for promotion were high ranked in
recent years, but not reached for promotion.
Boards may consider this information in their
ranking of employees qualified for promotion.
G. Additional Authorities and Responsibilites
1. Low Ranking Statements
Boards will identify those employees ranked in
the lowest 20 percent of their class. Such
employees will be informed of their ranking.
Boards will prepare a statement on each employee
subject to selection out who is ranked in the low
ten percent of each class or who is otherwise
designated for selection out consideration. The
statement must justify the employee's low rating
through a balanced presentation of his or her
strengths and weaknesses. It should cite examples,
and where appropriate, quote from evaluation
documents. Such statements should draw on material
from more than one rating year and where possible,
on evaluation reports prepared by more than one
rating officer.
Boards are encouraged to prepare counseling state-
ments on the other employees ranked in the bottom
20 percent of the class. Such statements should
address areas in which the employees should improve
their performance. The statements will be given to
the employees concerned and copies will also be given
to the employees' Career Development Officers.
Boards will recommend the denial of the next within-
step salary increase to employees whose performance
during the most recent rating year did not, in the
Board's view, meet the standard for efficient conduct
of the work of the Service. The Boards will prepare
a written justification in each case.
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1014
3. Criticisms and Commendations
Boards will identify rating and reviewing
officers and Inspectors, who merit commen-
dation or criticism for the quality of the
evaluation they prepared in the most recent
rating period. In each case where an officer
is criticized, the Board will prepare a
written statement citing deficiencies. Such
statements will be placed in the officer's
personnel files.
4. Special Recommendations
Selection Boards may make any recommendations
considered appropriate concerning the employees
under consideration, the materials used in the
evaluation process or improvements to the evalua-
tion and selection process.
1. Members of the Office of Performance Evaluation
will guide the Boards on the technical procedures
to be followed. The Boards will address all
queries regarding their work to the staff of that
office.
2. Each Board member will be provided only the follow-
ing:
a. A set of these precepts.
b. Each employee's performance file.
c. Instructions for the preparation of the
Performance Evaluation Report form.
d. A list of all employees to be reviewed.
e. A Personnel Audit Report on each employee to
be reviewed.
f. A copy of the Foreign Service Act and related
regulations covering the performance evaluation
and promotion system (3 FAM 500).
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h. An indication of the number of promotions
Management can authorize for each competi-
tion group in the current promotion cycle.
3. Boards will base their decisions on material
properly part of the employee's performance file.
Boards will have available the employee's entire
performance. record including, in some cases,
records from previous employment. Boards should
place greatest emphasis on the most recent five
years of service or period the employee has been
in present class, whichever is longer. They
should not give undue weight to any single evalua-
tion report. They may seek additional insights
by reviewing other reports prepared by rating
officers.
4. Board members should neither seek nor receive any
information on employees other than that properly
included in the performance file.
5. A Board member may not bring to the Board's
attention personal knowledge of an employee except
for information relevant to the employee's
performance or potential and then only by means
of a signed memorandum. A copy of the memorandum
shall be forwarded promptly, by cable if necessary,
to permit the employee to comment on it before
the Board completes its deliberations, but such
completion will not be delayed pending the receipt
of comment. A copy of the memorandum and the
employee's comments, if any, will be placed in
the performance file.
I. Findings
Each Board's findings will be forwarded to the Director General
under cover of a transmittal letter signed by the Board members.
The Director General may accept a Board's findings or return
them for review if there are any questions regarding procedures
or conformity with the precepts.
J. Oath of Office
Board members will heed the following oath of office and adhere
to the precepts. Failure to observe these instructions may
result in disciplinary action or penalties as prescribed by
the Privacy Act. Board members should report to the Director,
office of Performance Evaluation, any attempt to provide
them information not authorized by these precepts.
"I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I
will, without prejudice or partiality, perform faithfully
and to the best of my ability the duties of a member of a
Selection Board; that I will preserve the confidential charac-
ter of the personnel records used by the Board; that I will
adhere to the precepts; that I will not reveal to any
unauthorized person information concerning the deliberations,
findings, and recommendations of the Board. So help me God."
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APPENDIX A
.SPECIAL DIRECTIVES
BOARDS I AND II
A. General
Board I will review jointly the records of Class 1 officers
(FSOs, FSRs and FSRUs) with generalist and program direction
primary skill codes. Review will be on a classwide basis.
It will review separately the files of officers with
specialist primary skill codes.
Board II will review jointly the files of Class 2 officers
(FSOs, FSRS and FSRUs) with generalist and program direction
primary skill codes. Review will be on a classwide basis.
B. Special Instructions
The qualifications for senior responsibilities relate to
the mission of, the Foreign Service in formulating, implement-
ing, directing, coordinating and supporting the foreign policy
of the United States. The main task of Boards I and II is to
identify those officers who can best lead the Service in this
mission in the years ahead.
Substantive knowledge and leadership, intellectual, management,
and interpersonal skills are particularly important at the
senior levels. Senior responsibilities generally involve
the marshaling of personnel, ideas, and resources toward the
achievement of foreign policy objectives. This process involves
a variety of activities. For example, while service in one
of the senior positions on a policy planning or commercial
policy staff might not ordinarily engage an officer in leader-
ship and managerial skills, it would place great demands on
the officer's intellectual skills. Conversely, service in
senior administrative or consular positions might require
much greater emphasis on leadership and managerial skills.
Substantive knowledge and interpersonal skills are important
to performance in all positions. Not all senior positions
have easily defined requirements for policy direction and
executive leadership. Yet they fit into the framework of
senior responsibilities by virtue of the level of functional
or area expertise required.
Foreign language skills are also vital to the conduct of
foreign. affairs, and it is the Department's goal that
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officers reaching the senior grades of the Service will
have developed competency in two or more foreign languages.
However, Boards should keep in mind that not all functions
and career patterns provide the opportunity or the need
for foreign language development.
C. Consideration of High Performance in Previous Years
(Board II Only)
Board II will inform the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation of the names of those officers whom
it has found qualified for promotion.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will
inform the Board which of these officers had been ranked
in the upper 20 percent by any two of the last three
Selection Boards while in present class. The Board may
consider this information in determining its ranking of
officers qualified for promotion.
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation when it has completed its task
of identifying officers it deems qualified for promotion.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will
then inform the Board of the number of promotions management
can authorize for the competition group the Board has
reviewed. Upon receiving this additional information, the
Board will rank the officers it has found qualified for
promotion on the basis of relative merit.
E. Submission of Findings
The Boards will prepare the following reports:
1. Board I
a. A precise rank order list of the upper 20
percent of all officers reviewed with
generalist and program direction primary
skill codes.
b. A precise rank order list of the upper 20
percent of officers reviewed with specialist
primary skill codes.
c. A precise rank order list of those officers
with generalist and program direction primary
skill codes in the bottom 20 percent of the
class. All other officers need not be ranked.
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d. The Board will identify the bottom ten
percent of those officers with generalist
and program direction primary skill codes
subject to selection out and prepare
statements explaining each low ranking.
e. The Board is encouraged to prepare counseling
statements on the other officers ranked in
the bottom 20 percent of the class.
f. A list of FSRU-1 specialists who are subject
to selection out who should be referred to the
Performance Standards Board in accordance
with Section C. of'the General Directives. A
statement of reasons must be prepared to
support each such recommendation.
2. Board II
a. A precise rank order list of all officers
reviewed whom the Board deems qualified for
immediate advancement.
b. A precise rank order list of those officers
in the bottom 20-percent of the class. The
remaining officers need not be ranked.
c. The Board will identify the bottom ten percent
of those officers subject to selection out and
prepare statements explaining each low ranking.
d. The Board is encouraged to prepare counseling
statements on the other officers ranked in the
bottom 20 percent of the class.
In addition to the above, both Boards may prepare the
following reports and recommendations:
(1) A list of officers who should be denied
the next within-class salary increase
(Section 625(a) of the Act). The Board
will prepare a written justification in
each case.
(2) A list of officers who could not be
rated, with a statement of reasons
in each case.
(3) A list of rating and reviewing officers,
including Inspectors, who merit commenda-
tion or criticism for the quality of the
evaluation reports they prepared in the
most recent rating period. In each case
where an officer is criticized, the .
Board should prepare a written statement
citing deficiencies.
(4) Recommendations on policies and procedures
for subsequent Boards and improvements to
the performance evaluation system.
(5) Recommendations for the training, assign-
ment, or counseling of any officer or
group of officers.
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APPENDIX B
SPECIAL' DIRECTIVES
"BOARD III
A. General
Board III will consider jointly all Class 3 officers
(.FSOs and FSR/RUs) with generalist and program direction
primary skill codes.. The Board will also review FSSO-l
non-specialists. Consideration of FSOs and FSR/RUs will
_be..made jointly both by function and.classwide. Officers
with a program direction primary skill code:anda specialist
secondary skill code will compete classwide on Board III
.and in their specialist category on Board B. FSSO-ls are
at the top of their pay category and.cannot be promoted
to a higher rank. The Board wiill therefore review these
files only..to make.recommendations on training, assignment,
and counseling or to identify those whose performance merit
consideration for action under paragraph G.2. of the General
Directives.
The Board will first review and rank jointly the eligible
FSOs and FSR/RUs within their appropriate primary functional
category (i.e., administrative, consular, economic/commer-
cial, and political). The Board will next-review and rank
jointly the eligible FSOs-and FSR/RUs on a classwide basis.
B. Special Instructions
Promotion from Class 3 to Class 2 represents the crossing
of an important threshold into the Service's executive ranks.
It provides renewed tenure for extended further service,
advancing the officer beyond the time-in-class limitations
of mid career. Many officers can expect that they will
not cross this threshold intothe Service'.s senior ranks.
The skills and qualities which-have brought an officer
successfully to Class 3 are not necessarily sufficient to
move that officer beyond Class 3. The competitive emphasis
thus far in.his or her career has usually-been on functional
and area expertise. There are a few jobs at the Class 2
level in which this emphasis is. still--appropriate. There-
fore, when considering officers on a functional basis, the
Board should consider for immediate-advancement those
officers who have demonstrated exceptional competence in
their area of career concentration.
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The great majority of senior Foreign Service positions
beyond Class 3, however, will place heavy demands on an
officer's leadership and managerial skills. At the
Service's executive levels, the ability to integrate
various functional and area considerations in conceiving
policies and in understanding their implications is more
important than concentrated expertise in any one area
or function. In considering officers on a classwide
basis, the Board should consider for immediate advancement
officers who have displayed unusual leadership and managerial
ability.
Whether considering officers on a functional or a classwide
basis, however, the Board should bear in mind that all
senior positions in the Department, whether narrow or broad
in scope, demand a high level of substantive knowledge,
intellectual ability, and interpersonal skills. However,'
some officers may not have had an opportunity at mid-career
to display all of these qualities and skills. When consider-
ing such officers, the Board should look for evidence of
potential for such capacities.
Foreign language skills are also vital to the conduct of
foreign affairs, and it is the Department's goal that
officers reaching the"senior grades of the Service will
have developed competency in two or more foreign languages.
However, the Board should keep in mind that not all
functions and career patterns provide the opportunity or
the need for foreign language development.
C. Consideration of High Performance in Previous Years
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation of the names of those officers whom
it has identified as qualified for immediate advancement
on the classwide list as well as the functional list.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will
inform the Board which of these officers had been ranked
in the upper 20 percent by any two of the last three
Selection Boards (either classwide or by function) while in
present class.
The Board may consider this information in determining its
ranking of officers qualified for promotion.
D. Promotion Numbers
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation when it has completed its task of
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identifying officers it deems qualified for promotion.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will
then inform the Board of the number of promotions manage-
ment can authorize for each competition group the Board
has reviewed. Upon receiving this additional information,
the Board will rank the officers it has found qualified
for promotion on the basis of relative merit.
E. Submission of Findings and Recommendations
The Board will prepare the following report:
1. A single precise rank order list of FSOs and
FSR/RUs qualified for immediate advancement
on a classwide basis.
2. Precise single rank order lists of FSOs, FSRs
and FSRUs qualified for promotion functionally.
3. Precise rank order lists of officers in the
bottom 20 percent of the classwide list and the
functional lists. The remaining officers need
not be ranked.
4. The Board will identify the bottom ten percent
of those officers subject to selection out on
the functional lists and prepare statements
explaining each low ranking.
5. The Board is encouraged to prepare counseling
statements on the other officers ranked in the
bottom 20 percent of the classwide list and the
functional lists.
In addition to the above, the Board may prepare the
following reports and recommendations:
(1) A list of officers who should be denied
the next within-class salary increase
(Section 625(a) of the Act). The Board
will prepare a written justification in
each case.
(2) A list of officers who could not be rated,
with a statement of reasons in each case.
(3) A list of rating and reviewing officers,
including Inspectors, who merit commenda-
tion or criticism for the quality of the
evaluation reports they prepared in the
most recent rating period. In each case
where an officer.is criticized, the Board
should prepare a written statement citing
deficiencies.
(4) Recommendations on policies and procedures
for subsequent Boards, and improvements
to the performance evaluation system.
(5) Recommendations for the training, assignment
or counseling of any officer or group of
officers.
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APPENDIX C
SPECIAL DIRECTIVES
BOARDS IV AND V
A. General
Board IV will review the records of non-specialist FSOs,
FSRs and FSRUS in class 4 and FSSOs in class 2, except those
FSRs. FSRUs and FSSs in the administrative subfunctions
of personnel, general services and budget and fiscal.
Board V will review the records of non-specialist FSOs, FSRs,
and FSRUS in class 5 and FSSs in class 3, except those FSRs,
FSRUS and FSSs in the administrative subfunctions of personnel,
general services and budget and fiscal.
Officers will be referred to the Boards by functional category
(political, economic/commercial, administrative and consular)
in two groups, i.e., "Primary Zone" and "Secondary Zone".
For Board IV the Primary zone will include officers with five
or more years in present or equivalent Foreign Service class
as of September 1 of the year the Board meets. For Board V
the Primary Zone will consist of officers with three or more
years in present or equivalent Foreign Service class as of
September 1 of the year the Board meets.
The Secondary Zone for Boards IV and V will include all other
officers as appropriate.
B. Special Instructions
Promotion is recognition that an employee is capable of
performing the duties and responsibilities required at the
next higher level in the employee's functional category.
Officers reviewed by Boards IV and V will compete under the
"Zone-Merit" system which is designed to meet functional
needs at the next higher level while providing: 1) a stable
and predictable pattern of career advancement for good
officers; and 2) rapid advancement of outstanding officers.
The Board may find that a number of promotable officers
within a given function have substantially similar qualifi-
cations-for advancement, making it difficult to rank them
with confidence. In such cases the Board may favor those
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officers who have longer periods of sustained good performance
overall while in present class. However, where a difference
in merit as reflected in performance or potential is evident,
time-in-class should be disregarded.
It is in the interest of the Foreign Service to retain parti-
cularly promising officers within its ranks. Therefore,
Boards IV and V should make every effort to utilize the allo-
cation of promotion opportunities in the Secondary Zone in
the interest of advancing such officers more rapidly.
The Boards will receive a Memorandum of Certification from
the Director General indicating the number of officers
who may be-promoted in each functional category in the primary
and secondary zones.
C. Procedures
1. Primary Zone Consideration
The Board will rank the primary zone officers in each
functional category in one.of the following rank-
groups:
a. Designated Promotees
This rank group will include those primary zone
officers in each functional category deemed most
deserving of promotion.
The Memorandum of Certification will establish
an initial number of such designations in each
functional category. The Board may not alter
these quotas by shifting promotion opportunities
from one functional category to another. However,
the Board may, after completing its review of
secondary zone officers, enlarge the primary zone
opportunities for a functional category to what-
ever extent it elects not to utilize the secondary
zone number for the same functional category
(,see paragraph 2 below). In such event the Board
will elevate to the "Designated Promotee" rank
group the officer or officers who would otherwise
rank highest in the "qualified but not designated"
rank-group. described below.
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Qualified But Not Designated For Promotion
This rank-group will include all remaining
primary zone officers who are judged qualified
to serve at the next higher grade but who are
not ranked high enough to be included in the
"Designated Promotee" group. All officers
except the top 15 should be ranked by score
group, but ties in the scoring process need
be broken (see Section C.3).?
Unqualified for Promotion
This rank group will include all officers judged
not qualified for advancement. They need not be
precisely ranked but a written statement of
reasons supporting the Board's finding must be
prepared for each case. Officers identified
in this group will be referred to a Performance
Standards Board for consideration for selection
out.
Secondary Zone Consideration
The Board will review the files of secondary zone
officers (by functional category) to identify those
officers who: (a) have demonstrated such outstanding
performance and potential as to merit immediate
promotion or (b) are considered to be significantly
inferior to their peers.
a. Outstanding Promotees
Officers so identified in each functional category
may not exceed the number-set for that category
in the Memorandum of Certification. In determin-
ing whether to utilize.all of.the authorized
secondary zone promotions in a particular cone,
the Board should make a cross-zonal comparison
between the secondary.zone officers under considera-
tion and the highest ranking officers in the
"Qualified But Not Designated" group of the primary
zone. To whatever extent the Board elects not to
award the secondary zone promotion opportunities
in a particular function it will correspondingly
enlarge the "Designated Promotee" rank-group of
the same functional category in the primary zone,
by elevating officers from the top of the
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"Qualified But Not Designated" rank order
list for that category.
b. Significantly Inferior
Secondary zone officers subject to selection
out whose performance in their present class
is significantly inferior to that of their
peers in the same functional group will be
considered for selection out. A precise
rank-order of such officers is not required
but a written statement of reasons supporting
the Board's finding must be prepared for each
case.
3. Additional Promotion Consideration
Circumstances may arise after the Boards have
completed their work (deaths, resignations,
approval of additional promotion opportunities)
which may necessitate moving beyond the number
of officers certified for promotion in the
Memorandum of Certification. For this reason,
the Board may identify for promotion up to three
additional secondary zone officers in each func-
tionalcategory. If after cross zonal comparison
between such officers and the top 15 primary zone
officers "qualified but not designated" in each
functional category the Board determines that
any or all of the three secondary zone officers
should be promoted, it should precisely rank
both groups of officers jointly by function up
to a total of 15 in each function. If it
determines that none of the secondary zone
officers merits promotion, it should precisely
rank the top 15 primary zone officers "qualified
but not designated" in each function.
D. 'Submission of Findings and Recommendations
Each Board will prepare the following reports:
1. Alphabetical lists by functional category of
primary zone "Designated Promotees".
2. Rank-Order lists by functional category of primary
zone officers judged "Qualified But Not Designated
for Promotion"..
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3. Precise rank order lists by functional category
of additional officers considered_for promotion
as described in section C.3 above.
4. Alphabetical lists by functional category of
primary zone officers deemed "Not Qualified for
Promotion" with a separate statement of reasons
to support each case. Officers identified in
tuts group will be referred to a Performance
Standards Board for further consideration for
selection out.
5. Lists by functional category of officers in-the
secondary zone meriting immediate promotion.
6. Alphabetical Lists by functional category of
officers in the secondary zone whose performance
is judged significantly inferior to that of their
peers with statements of reasons to support each
case. Officers identified in this group will be
referred to a Performance Standards Board for
further consideration for selection out.
In addition to the above,;each Board may prepare the
following reports and recommendations:
1. A list of officers who should be denied the next
within-class salary increase (Section 625(a) of
the Act). A written statement of reasons should
be prepared on each employee so-identified; it
will be sent'to the employee.
2. A list of officers who could not be rated, with a
statement of reasons in each case.
3. A list of rating and reviewing officers, including
Inspectors, who merit commendation or criticism
for the quality of the evaluation reports they
prepared in the most recent rating period. In
each case where an officer is criticized, a written
statement citing deficiencies should be prepared.
4. Recommendations on policies and procedures for,
subsequent Boards and improvements to.the
performance evaluation system.
5, Recommendations on the training, assignment, or
counseling of any officer or group of officers.,
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APPENDIX D
SPECIAL DIRECTIVES
BOARD VI
A. General
The Board will review the records of Class 6 (FSO/FSR/RU)
and FSS-4 officers who have been recommended for tenure
and identify those whom it considers to be suitable
for immediate advancement.
B. Special Instructions
All officers will be reviewed on a classwide basis in
accordance with the General Directives. Officers should
be judged on their overall potential as evidenced by their
performance of assigned duties.
C. Promotion Numbers
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation when it has completed its task of
identifying officers. it deems qualified for promotion.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will
then inform the Board of the number of promotions management
can authorize for each competition group the Board has
reviewed. Upon receiving this information, the Board will
rank the officers it has found qualified for promotion on
the basis of relative merit.
D. Submission of Findings and Recommendations
The Board will prepare the following report:
1. A precise rank order list of all officers who
are qualified for immediate advancement.
2. A precise rank order list of those officers in
the bottom 20 percent of the class. The
remaining officers need not be ranked.
3. The Board is encouraged to prepare counseling
statements on those officers ranked in the
bottom 20 percent of the class.
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4. An alphabetical list of those officers whom the
Board considers to be significantly inferior.
The Board will prepare statements explaining the
reasons for each case. Officers identified in
this group will be referred to a Performance
Standards Board for consideration for selection
out
In addition to the above, the Board may prepare the following
reports and recommendations:
A list of those officers who should be denied the
next within-class salary increase (Section 625
of the Act). A written statement of reasons
should be prepared on each officer so identified
A list of officers who could not be rated, with
statement of reasons in each case.
A list of rating and reviewing officers, including
Inspectors, who merit commendation or criticism-
for the evaluation reports they prepared in the
most recent rating period. In each case where an
officer is criticized, the Board should prepare a
written statement citing deficiencies.
4. Recommendations on policies and procedures for
subsequent Boards or for improvement to the
performance evaluation system.
5. Recommendations on the training, assignment, or
counseling of any officer or group of officers.
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APPENDIX E
SPECIAL DIRECTIVES
BOARD A
A. General
The Board will review the records of non-specialist employees
(except those in the Junior Officer and Mustang Programs) by
comparable class in classes FSR/RU-6 through 8 and FSS-4
through 8. The Board dill also review the records of those
FSR/RUs in classes 4 and 5 and FSSs in classes 2 and 3 with
a non-specialist skill code in the administrative subfunctions
of personnel, general services and budget and fiscal.
B. Special Instructions
Employees will be referred to the Board by functional category
(political, economic/commercial, administrative and consular)
and subfunctional category (personnel, budget and fiscal and
general services). The Board will evaluate such employees in
accordance with the General Directives, with emphasis on each
employee's demonstrated capacity to apply functional competence
to the work of the Foreign Service and the potential to perform
well in this function at higher levels of responsibility.
C. Consideration of High Performance in Previous Years
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of Performance
Evaluation of the names of those employees in each functional
and subfunctional group it has identified as qualified for
immediate advancement in each competing group. The Director
of the Office of Performance Evaluation will inform the Board
which of these employees were ranked in"the upper 20 percent
of their competing group in any two of the previous three years
while in present class and function. The Board may consider
this informacion in determining the ranking of officers found
qualified for immediate advancement.
D. Promotion Numbers
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of Performance
Evaluation when it has completed its task of. identifying officers
it deems qualified for promotion.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will then
inform the Board of the number of promotions management can
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authorize for each competition group the Board has reviewed.
Upon receiving this additional information, the Board will
rank the officers it has found qualified for promotion on
the basis of relative merit.
E. Submission of Findings and Recommendations
The Board will prepare the following reports:
1. A precise rank order list of employees in each
category by comparable class who are qualified
for promotion.
2. A precise rank order list of employees in each
category by comparable class who are in the
bottom 20 percent. The remaining employees
need not be ranked.
3. The Board is encouraged to prepare counseling
statements on employees ranked in the bottom
20 percent.
4. A list of FSRUs subject to selection out who
should be referred to the Performance Standards
Board in accordance with Section III of the General
Directives. In each case the Board will prepare
statements explaining the reasons for each identi-
fication.
In addition to the above, each Board may prepare the following
reports and recommendations:
1. A list of those employees who should be denied the
next within-class salary increase (Section
625(a)
of the Act). A statement of reasons should
prepared on each employee so identified.
be
2. A list of employees who could not be rated with a
statement of reasons in each case.
3. Alist of rating and reviewing officers, including
Inspectors, who merit commendation or criticism
for the quality of the evaluation reports they
.prepared during the most recent rating period.
In each case where an officer is criticized, a
written statement citing deficiencies should be
prepared.
4. Recommendations on policies and procedures
for subsequent Boards and improvements to
the system.
5. Recommendations on the training, assignment,
or counseling of any employee or group of
employees.
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APPENDIX F
SPECIAL DIRECTIVES
SPECIALIST BOARDS
A. General
The Specialist Boards will consider the specialist employees
by class and specialist category or categories as described
in paragraaph C of these Special Directives.
B. Special Instructions
1. Specialists are employees whose primary skills
involve professional and technical qualifications
of such a specialized nature that their performance
is difficult to compare with employees of the same
or equivalent class in the four major functional
categories or in other specialties.
2. The Boards will evaluate such employees in accordance
with the General Directives, with emphasis on demon-
strated performance and potential in the employees'
specialties.
3. Boards should be aware that some employees under their
review have reached the top within their career field
and cannot be promoted. Boards should give particular
attention to recommendations they are authorized to
make with regard to training and assignments, and an
employee's potential to serve, in other functions.
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C. Specialist Categories
Following is a list of the specialist
which employees will compete:
Specialist Categories
1. Budget & Fiscal
2. General Services
3. Printing & Publications
4. Communications officers
5. Communications Technicians
6. Communications Engineers
7.. Diplomatic Couriers
8. Mail, File & Records Officers
9. Security officers
10. Security Technicians
11. Security Officers - Intelligence
12. Organization & Management
13. Auditors
14. Computer
15. Foreign Buildings Officers
16. Special Administrative Functions
17. Education & Cultural
18. Public Affairs
19. Writers & Editors
20. Research Analyst
21. Foreign Affairs Analyst
22. For. Aff. Pol/Mil Scien. Analyst
23. Architects & Engineers
24. Medical Officers
25. Medical Technicians
26. Nurses
27. Nurse Practitioners
28. Science Officers
29. Mathematicians
30. Attorneys
31. Shorthand Reporters
32. Education Officers
33. Foreign Assistance Inspector
34. Geographers
35. Historians
36. Treaty Specialists
37. Librarian
38. Refugee & Migration officers
39. Visual Services
40. Interior Designer
.41. Protocol Specialists
42. Congressional Relations Officers
43. Language & Training officers
44. Secretaries
45. Miscellaneous
46. Narcotics Officers
47. Clerk
48. Motor Transportation Operator
Skill Code
Groupings
2135-2186 & 9010
2315-2340
2350-2360
2405, 2406, 2407, 2410-
2426, 9050, 9120, 9160
2430-2434
2435
2440, 2441
2450-2475, 9040, 9222-
9224, 9340
2505,2510-2515, 2530,
2525
2520
2540
2600-2669
.2670-2671
2703-2735
2820-2827 & 6063
2810-2811 & 2835-2870
4005-4100
4510-4520 & 4540-4560
4530-4534
5812-5819 & 5825-5830
5820-5822
5824
6010-6062 & 6064-6075
6120-6121 & 6180
6130-6132 & 9230
6140
6141
6150-6156
6165-6170
6220-6231
6240
6250-6255
6260
6270-6272
6280
6285
6290 & 9215
6310
6330-6332
6323
6345
6350
6410-6692
9280-9282
6265-6267 & 6320-6322,
6340
8556 & 6311
9240 & 9450
9912
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D. Consideration of High Performance in Previous Years
The Boards will give the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation the names of all employees in
each competing group they have identified as qualified
for immediate advancement. The Director of the Office
of Performance Evaluation will inform the Boards which
of these employees were recommended for promotion or were
ranked in the upper 20 percent while in present class and
specialty by any two of the previous three Selection
Boards. The Boards may consider this information in
determining the ranking of employees found qualified for
immediate advancement.
The Board will inform the Director of the Office of
Performance Evaluation when it has completed its task of
identifying employees it deems qualified for promotion.
The Director of the Office of Performance Evaluation will
then inform the Boards of the number of promotions
management can authorize for each competition group the
Boards have reviewed. Upon receiving this additional
information, the Boards will rank the employees they have
found qualified for promotion on the basis of relative
merit.
F. Submission of Findings and Recommendations
Each Board will prepare the following reports:
1. A precise rank order list of employees in each
category by comparable. class who are qualified
for immediate advancement.
2. A precise rank order list of employees in the
bottom 20 percent of each category. All remain-
ing officers need not be ranked.
3. The Boards are encouraged to prepare counseling
statements on employees in the bottom 20 percent
of each category.
4. A list of FSOs and FSRUs subject to selection out
who should be referred to the Performance Standards
,Board,in accordance with Section III of the General
Directives. In each case the Board will prepare
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statements explaining the reasons for each
identification.
In addition to the above, each Board may prepare-the
following reports and recommendations:
1. A list of those employees who should be'denied
.the-next.within-class'salary increase (Section
625(a) of:the Act). A statement of reasons
should be prepared on each officer so identified.
2. A list of employees who could -not be rated with
a statement of reasons in each case.
3. A list of rating and reviewing officers, including
Inspectors, who-merit commendation or criticism
for the quality of the evaluation reports they
prepared during the most.. recent rating period.
In each case where an officer is criticized, a
written statement-citing deficiencies should be
prepared.
4. Recommendations on policies and procedures for
subsequent Boards and-improvements to the system.
5. Recommendations on the training, assignment, or
counseling of any employee or group of employees.
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Question: What are the different kinds of compensation
which are provided in this legislation? How will they be
awarded?
Answer: The bill provides for the following types of
payments to members as compensation for services rendered
as distinguished from reimbursement for expenses incurred
for representation, training, travel and similar activities:
(a) Basic pay for members of the Foreign Service.
This includes salary increases granted as a result
of both within class and class to class promotions.
For American members of the Service, salary is
based upon the member's personal rank or class,
and for foreign nationals it is based on the position
held.
(b) Performance pay (section 441) is authorized
for career members of the Senior Foreign Service.
Performance pay may not be given to more than
50% of the members of the Senior Foreign Service
in any one year. Generally, performance pay may
not exceed 20% of the member's annual rate of
basic salary and is awarded by the Secretary on
the basis of recommendations by a selection board.
In addition, the President may award up to $10,000
to up to 5% of the members of the Senior Foreign
Service and up to $20,000 to 1% of such members.
The presidential awards are based upon recommenda-
tion by a special interagency selection board
established by the Secretary for this purpose.
(c) Charge pay (section 461) is authorized for
temporary service in charge of a Foreign Service
post during the absence or incapacity of the
principal officer. Charge pay may be an amount
up to the full difference between the salaries
provided for the principal officer and the
officer acting in charge. It is awarded under
regulations of the Secretary describing amounts
to be paid and the minimum period of charge
service required for eligibility for charge pay.
(d) Special allowances (section 462) are author-
ized for Foreign Service officers who are re-
quired because of the nature of. their assignments
to perform additional work on a regular basis in
substantial excess of normal requirements. It
is awarded pursuant to the Secretary's regulations
on the basis of recommendations by a special
committee and approval by the Director General.
52-083 0 - 80 - 66
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(e) Retirement (chapter 8) and severence
(section 643) payments to those completing
their careers in the Foreign Service and who
met eligibility requirements specified in the
Act.
(f) Special payments are authorized to foreign.
national employees to reimburse (1) those who
are imprisoned because of their employment with
the U.S. Government (section 453) and (2) those
whose Civil Service annuities have fallen below
prevailing local levels because of depreciation'
of the U.S. dollar (section 451(a)(2)).
Apart from performance pay described in paragraph (b)'
above, the kinds of compensation for the Foreign Service
under this bill will be the same as under existing law.
The new feature of performance pay parallels the provisions
of the Civil Service Reform Act as applicable to the
Senior Executive Service.
F.3. Question: What are the findings of the recent -
Comparability Pay Study (the "Hay Study") and how
do they affect this legislation?
Answer: See response to Question A.2.
F.4. Question: How will the mandatory ceiling
on salary levels affect the operation of
performance pay?
Answer: The statutory ceiling on salary
levels applies only to basic pay. As under
the Civil Service Reform Act, performance
is separate and apart from basic pay and
is not subject to the ceiling.
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F.S. Question: Please describe the difference between a
"rain-person" system and a "rank-in-position"
system and the advantages of the former over the
latter.
Answer: The attached chart compares the two kinds
of personnel systems with respect to basic personnel
system functions such as recruitment, assignment,
promotion, separation, and evaluation. Whether one
is preferable to the other depends on the circum-
stances rather than any inherent advantage of one
over the other. In particular, "rank-in-person"
systems are advantageous in circumstances, like those
in the Foreign Service, where members are required
to move at frequent intervals from one position to
another, since promotion is carried out separately
from assignment, and thus, the central personnel
system can assign individuals to specific positions
according to the needs of the Service, rather than
competition for each assignment being required as
is usually true in a rank-in-position system. For
a more static and more specialized workforce, as
is usually the case for the Civil Service, a rank-
in-position system has the advantages of competing
individuals for promotion or assignment against the
requirements of a specific position, which can pro-
vide a better match of skills against requirements.
More generally, there is no perfect personnel
system. One of the reasons this Bill provides, for
"dual" FS/GS personnel systems for the foreign
affairs agencies community is that a rank-in-person.
system is more advantageous for those who serve over-
seas as well as at home, and a rank-in-person system
better suits those who serve only domestically.
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1038
Alternative Personnel System Structures
Personnel
Function Rank in Job (CS) Rank in Person (FS)
Placement/
Assignment
Career
"Breadth"
Current job is key - Does recruit Career orientation - Can recruit be
have qualifications or skills needed expected to progress, in a controlled
for this job? Can recruit do what is pattern, to the senior ranks of higher
needed in this job better than other career speciality, and be more likely
qualified applicants? to do so well than competition? Does
recruit have potential for long-term
advancement in a variety.of jobs?
Entrants cane in at any level appro- Most entrants cane in at bottom, rather
priate to job requirements.- than mid-career or senior levels.
Tied to specific standards of position Flexible assignments which periodically
in question.. No requirement to move change. Individual subject to "Ser-
fran current position. Competition vice discipline", i.e., to accept any
for placement is key to modern merit geographic/functional/level assignment
promotion system. Individual must system requires. Individuals can be
usually initiate and agree'to changes assigned above or below personal class/
in assignment. Job level and personal grade, if needs of Service warrant.
rank generally must be consistent. No
option to assign above or below.class.
Takes place in conjunction with assign- Separate process from assignment. Pro-
ments. If selected for a job at a motion occurs in competition with other
higher level, the promotion cares auto- members of class, with number promoted
matically upon beginning duty In that determined by "openings" at next level,
job. in the aggregate, rather than "one-to-
Normally, little concern with later
career prospects; all is keyed to job
in question. The primary concern is
the immediate job in question rather
than long-term career prospects.
Intention is to prepare for senior
responsibilities,-so next assignment
viewed in longer term (developmental),
as well as in terms of who is best
equipped to perform this job now.
In order to be retained, individual
must a) meet minimum standards or else
be separated for cause (like GS option);
b) not exceed maximum periods of time
in class without promotion ("time-in-
class"); c) not be identified, on a
relative basis of comparison of per-
formance to all other members of his/
her class, or being "low ranked" -
this implies "up-or-,out system"
(either be promoted competitively, or
leave system).
Employee evaluated not only with re-
spect to current performance, but also
regarding career potential. Ratings,
even if not unsatisfactory, can have
major impact on retention, promotions,
assignment, since they are normally
used to provide a relative ranking of
all members of carpetition group (class
level and/or occupational specialty).
Separation As long as individual is meeting basic
standards of performance for job in
question, can retain position (only
mechanism is "separation for cause"
if does not meet standards of position
- standards of grade level, particu-
larly critical elements under new
Civil Service Reform Act standards).
Evaluation Employee performance evaluated only
with respect to performance in current
position. Only unsatisfactory rating
likely to have immediate impact, if
leads to separation action (rare);
little impact on promotion, assign-
ment, unless employee decides to
canpete for pranotioq/reassignment/
transfer.
Labor-management Relations and grievance regulations and procedures
should provide equal due process, but likely to differ in form to
meet specific circumstances of each system.
"Decoupling" of pranotion,and assignment in rank-in-person system
needed in situations where frequent rotation of personnel (military,
Foreign Service).
Most personnel systems tend to either rank-in-job or rank-in-person,
but few if any "pure" systems exist in the public sector.
DG P/PC:WIBacchus:hp
6/27/79
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Question: One of the changes proposed in
the ay system allows denial of within-grade
step increases for those whose performance
ranked at the bottom of a class and the
granting of double-step increases to those
ranked at the top. What is the purpose of
this proposed change?
Answer: This change is intended to provide
an additional incentive for outstanding per-
formance and to make an impression on mediocre
performers that greater effort is required of
them. This will be accomplished without sig-
nificant added costs, and will restore to the
periodic step increase the quality of being
a reward for satisfactory performance rather
than an automatic benefit of seniority. .
F.7. Question: What is your projected cost of the performance
pay provision?
Answer: The Administration has not yet taken a final
position on the sums to be sought for performance pay for
SES members. The Department would, of course, plan to
request a sum for SES performance pay which would be an
identical percentage of basic annual salaries now provided
for SES. In sum, we will be guided in this context by the
objectives of pay comparability and compatibility. between
the Civil Service and the Foreign Service.
F.B. Question: Why do you. authorize performance
payments of up to $20,000 in a year to a
maximum of one percent of the members of
the Senior Foreign Service and $10,000
in any year to a ma?lmum of six percent
of the Senior Foreigr'Service members?
Answer: Section 441 of the bill provides
that a total of six percent of the members
of the SFS may be eligible for performance
pay in addition to the otherwise applicable
20% of base pay limitation. Of this total,
up to one percent of the SFS may receive
awards of up to $20,000 and up to five
percent of the SFS may receive awards of
up to $10,000.
These limitations are the same as for the
Senior Executive Service under the Civil
Service Reform Act.
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F.9. Question: How does merit pay operate under '._
the Civil Service regulations?
Answer: Under Title V of the Civil Service
Reform Act, merit pay will apply to managers
and supervisors at the GS-13, 14, and 15 levels.
Merit pay is designed to recognize and reward
quality performance. Individuals covered by
merit pay do not receive regular step increases.
Rather, on an annual basis, their performance
is appraised, and a determination on the amount
of merit pay to be awarded is made taking into
account individual performance and organizational
accomplishment. The determination may be based
on factors such as improvements in efficiency,
productivity and quality of work or service as
well as timeliness of performance. The size of
the merit pay award may be up to the maximum
rate of basic pay payable for the particular
grade.
F10. Question: Why were provisions for merit pay
deleted from this legislation? Has it been re-
placed by within-class salary increases, which
seem to be.automatic unless substandard performance
is found by a selection board?
Answer: See response to Question A19.
F.11. Question: Under the new permance pay
system, isn't it theoretically possible
that a Chief of Mission might be earning
a lower salary than a subordinate who
has accumulated a significant amount of
performance pay? Is this a problem?
Answer: Under the new performance pay
system (which is designed to parallel
certain features of CSRA) it is possible
for subordinates to earn more than su-
periors. This feature (which is found
in the SES, Title IV of the CSRA) is
an attempt to recognize individual per-
formance over seniority or rank. It is
particularly appropriate in a rank-in-
person system which strives to recognize
and reward significant individual per-
formance. Performance pay is on an annual
basis and is not guaranteed from year to
year. This is not considered a problem,
but rather a distinct plus.
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F.12. Question: Does the GAO report of January 8, 1979
recommending improved coordination and greater uniformity
in foreign national pay plans suggest or require any
changes?
Answer: The GAO report recommends closer coordination
between State and Defense to more closely align, or make
identical, embassy local compensation plans and those at
nearby military bases, if any. The Department has taken
several specific technical steps recommended by GAO to
achieve this purpose. For example, we now include rates
paid at nearby military bases in embassy wage surveys
when a base uses an indirect hiring system with the base
employees technically being employees of the host govern-
ment and being paid wages negotiated with the host govern-
ment. We have also emphasized to our contractors that
conduct embassy wage surveys the importance of coordinat-
ing their activities and findings to the maximum extent
possible with any nearby military base. Whenever possible,
in countries where Defense uses the direct hire system,
we attempt to schedule joint embassy-military wage surveys.
There are fundamental differences between the local
wage programs of Defense and State and it will probably
be impossible to eliminate all differences in these pro-
grams. The Defense system is designed to meet the needs
of very large military complexes while the State system
is designed to meet the needs of several hundred small
posts. In addition, military bases are in competition
with private industrial and quasi-industrial operations
in the country which employ a predominantly blue-collar
workforce. Just the opposite is true of diplomatic
missions at which white-collar employment dominates. Dif-
ferences in pay and benefits often exist for the same job
between a plant operation (blue-collar) and its headquarters
(white-collar) office. The Department's sampling of
employers therefore is designed to ensure that embassies
pay salaries comparable to their competitors. The Depart-
ment of Defense sampling achieves the same result, but for
a different type of employee.
The GAO report also recommended a greater effort to
eliminate reliance on the U. S. civil service retirement
system to provide retirement benefits for foreign national
employees and to rely instead on local systems. The
Department is increasing its efforts toward the achievement
of this goal and it has been incorporated expressly into
section 451 of the bill. Difficulties that must. be over-
come in this connection involve the negotiation of agree-
ments or arrangements that .'jpermit embassies to retain
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adequate control over their hiring and firing policies
and that will permit fair treatment of our long service
employees. The latter type of problem involves the in-
sistence by some countries that if any of an embassy's
employees are to be enrolled in the local social insurance
program, all must be enrolled and make contributions
despite the fact that those who enroll late in life will
get little or no return from their contributions.
Also, in countries with very poor local retirement
systems and where a stigma attaches to those who work
for the United States, we are reluctant to relinquish
the incentive provided by the Civil Service retirement
system to persons with superior qualifications to come to
work for the United States.
F.13. Question: Besides the authority to pay special allow-
ances section 462), are any overtime provisions included
in this legislation?
Answer: Overtime and other forms of premium pay applic-
aable tto American personnel are authorized in Title 5 of
the United States Code and are not provided for in the
Foreign Service Act of 1946 or in this bill. Overtime to
foreign national employees based upon prevailing local
practices is authorized under section 451.
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F.15. Question: Earlier drafts of the Bill set salaries
of all Chiefs of mission at Executive Level IV. The
current section 401 provides a range from Executive
Levels II through V. Why the change?
Answer: Earlier drafts of-the Bill did indeed set
the Base pay of all Chiefs of Mission at Executive
Level IV. Our preliminary view was that the con-
tinuation of different pay levels for Chiefs of
Mission depending upon their post of assignment was
inconsistent with the rank-in-person principle and
with the idea of performance pay. At the same time
and for the same reasons, we had planned to eliminate
certain regulations which limit the pay and allow-
ances of subordinate members of a Diplomatic mission
to $100 less than the pay of the Chief of Mission
and which also prevent the Chief of Mission from
receiving hardship allowances for which other mem-
bers of his or her staff are eligible.
We discovered that the cost of making changes
in the allowance structure would be $788,000 and
that not making them but establishing a new, and in
many cases, lower Chief of Mission base pay level,
would have the effect of reducing the total amount of
compensation of 150 persons by an average amount of
$1400. Since we do not have the resources to cover
the additional costs, we decided that it would be
unfair to set all Chief of Mission compensation at
Executive Level IV at this time in view of widely
differing responsibilities from post to post.
Therefore, Section 401 was changed to reflect the
existing system of paying Chiefs of Mission at
Executive Levels II through V. However, the lan-
guage of the section differs from existing law in
that the four levels of salary, for Chiefs of Mission
will be a maximum number which may be reduced by
the President. This provides the President with
the ability to go to the single pay level at such
time as the necessary resources are available and
it is considered desirable to do so.
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F.16. Question (a): Medical Program - How large is the
medical corps of the Department?
Answer: The Department has positions for 46 full-'
time Foreign Service physicians. Of these, 32 serve
overseas, 12 support the program from the Washington
base, and 2 are in specialized tropical medicine
training. The overseas medical program supports
over 250 posts and 29 Regional Medical Officers and
3 Regional Psychiatrists who provide direct physical
and mental health care, local medical care evalua-
tions, preventive medicine, and health care advice
to over 50,000 persons, covered under the State
Department program.
In addition to the above, the Domestic Program
which provied over 22,000 medical clearance actions
per year and operaties three domestic health rooms
under the Randolph Health Act, has positions for
two full-time Civil Service and positions for nine
physicians who are employed part-time.
Question (b): Medical Program - How many vacancies
does State have at the moment?
Answer: Currently, there are four Foreign Service
medical officer vacancies and one part-time Civil
Service vacancy.
Question (c): Medical Program - Do you anticipate
having trouble recruiting personnel who meet State's
requirements?
Answer: It is.always difficult to recruit and retain
very highly-qualified physicians into the Foreign
Service. The exceptional responsibility of Regional
Medical Officers requires, professional medical back-
ground and experience that is in great demand. We
cannot compete with the civilian sector financially
and before passage of the Physicians Comparability
Pay Allowance Act, could not compete with other ele-
ments of the Government. Implementation of the
comparability allowance would assist State to compete
more equitable and improve the possibility of
filling the vacancies -- more importantly, it
would assist to retain the well-qualified and
experienced Foreign Service physicians. Reten-
tion is more cost-effective than recruiting.
Question (d): Medical Program - How will they
classify -- Civil Service or Foreign Service?
Answer: Those physicians who are available for
worldwide assignment are classified Foreign Service.
Those who serve only in domestic service are classi-
fied as Civil Service.
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F.17. Question: Has consideration been given to
providing variable incentive pay, similar to that provided
by the Defense Department for the Foreign Service's medical
personnel?
Answer: Consideration was given to including a
variable incentive pay provision in the Foreign Service
Act of 1979. In fact, an early draft of the bill contained
a provision that would have authorized the Secretary of
State to establish a pay plan for medical personnel of
the Foreign Service with payments up to the amounts, under
comparable conditions, specified in 37 U.S.C. 313 for
variable incentive pay to medical officers of the Armed
Forces. The provision was ultimately deleted because the
Department concluded as a general matter that the essential
personnel system reforms of the Act should not be encumbered
or handicapped by additional proposals for new allowances
or benefits, however meritorious such proposals might be
in themselves. The Department does favor in principle
variable incentive pay for our medical personnel, but
continues to believe that the present Act is not the
appropriate vehicle to authorize such pay.
F.18. Question: Would variable incentive pay alleviate
State's di' ivies in recruitment?
Answer: The Department believes that variable
incentive poor Department medical personnel would be
a long-term solution to our recruitment problems. Our
experience clearly demonstrates that a sufficient number
of qualified medical personnel cannot be recruited or
retained at the current rates of pay. It is hoped that
the Physicians' Comparability Allowance authorized by
P.L. 95-603 will ameliorate recruitment problems to some
degree. However, P.L. 95-603 authorizes additional allow-
ances only through 1981 and agreements for such allowances
must be entered into by September 30, 1979. 'Consequently,
even if implementing regulations are issued potential
recruits can have no assurance that Department of State
compensation will remain competitive with other job oppor-
tunities even over the middle-term. Moreover, the allow-
ances permitted under P.L. 95-603 are still considerably
less than those permitted under the variable incentive pay
provisions available to the Department of Defense, the
Veterans Administration, and the Public Health Service.
The Department may remain at a disadvantage compared to
these agencies unless-it receives a similar authorization.
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G.1. Question: In classifying positions under this new
legislation, how do you plan to treat legal posi-
tions? If they are not classified as attorney
positions,. won't it be difficult to fill them
with highly qualified attorneys, who generally
expect to be treated as attorneys in name as-well
as position? -
Answer: The Department has only a few attorney
positions in the Foreign Service. These are normally
filled by limited appointments of members of the
Department's Office of the Legal adviser or AID's
Office of General Counsel, who have reemployment
rights in their former positions.
G.2. Question: Currently what proportion of the salaries of
Foreign Service personnel on loan to other agencies and
organizations are reimbursed?
Foreign Service personnel\on detail to other agencies and
organizations as of July 1, 1979 are reimbursed as follows:
fully reimbursed - 134; partially reimbursed (15 to 20
percent) - 11; and non-reimbursed - 22.
G.3. Question: Is the Congress expected to pay traver
certain other expenses for personnel assigned to a Member
or office of the Congress? (section 521(b)(2)) Why?
Answer: Currently, the Department pays the expenses to
get the officer, his-family and effects to and from the
location of the assignment. All expenses associated with
duties of that assignment, however, are undertaken by the
host organization. The Department would not'undertake to
pay travel for attendance at meetings, or conducting other
business on behalf of a state or local government, or other
organizations qualified under the program. With respect
to the Congress, there is a difference in the practice for
the House as compared-with the Senate. For officers
assigned to the House of Representatives, travel and other
expenses have been paid by the committee's or the Member's
office to which an officer has been assigned. Senate
regulations, however, prohibit payment of travel or expenses
for any person other than a Senate employee. This bill
will provide a uniform basis for all host organizations to
fund the expenses connected with the actual work of the
assignment. Since the Department cannot control this
travel expense, it is believed that the employing office
rather than the Department should budget and pay for this
expense.
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G.4. Question: Section 521(c) establishes a limita-
tion of four years on assignments to positions outside
the Foreign service, a limitation which is independent
of the-eight-year limitation on'continuous assignments
within the United States. Theoretically, this means
that a member of the Service could serve in the U.S. for
twelve years before going back overseas. Doesn't this
threaten the concept of worldwide availability?
Answer: Section 521(c) and section 531(a) are
separate provisions, but not cumulative. Any assignment,
or series of assignments within the United States under
section 521(c), would also have to be within the eight
years provided by section 531(a). Section 521(c) assign-
ments (for example, to OECD in Europe) may not involve
domestic service at all; section 531(a) is specifically
directed to limitation of domestic service, and controlling
on that subject.
G.S. Question: Why are sabbaticals (Section 531
[e]) limited to a maximum of eleven months?
Answer: Sabbaticals are limited to 11 months
in order to permit the individual to complete
the work or study experience which is designed
to contribute to his/her development and effec-
tiveness. It parallels the provision in Title IV
of the Civil Service Reform Act.
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1048
G.6. Question: You have made a number of changes in the so-
called Pearson program. Among these are the. elimination
of the mandate for the Secretary to make appointments to
this program and the elimination of the requirement that
such appointments will occur after, the seventh year of
service. Would you`explain these changes?
Answer: Changes in the Pearson program have been made
to streamline and simplify its administration, similar to
our efforts with a number of other provisions in the 1946
Foreign Service Act. The Department does not envision a
change in the present practice of assigning Foreign Service
officers to state and local governments, public educational
institutions and private non-profit organizations. It
regards these assignments as extremely valuable in broaden-
ing officers' experience and hopes'to expand the program
as resources permit. While the bill would not limit the
program to'officers Who have completed seven years of
service, the Department would continue to assign officers
to this program who have completed initial tours in the
Service.
Another change is the proposal to remove the current
limitation on the number of assignments to the Congress
under this program of 20 percent of the total number of
assignments under the program. This rigid limitation
could easily operate to bar an otherwise desirable assign-
ment in this relatively small program. Accordingly, we
substituted the proposed new requirement that assignments
under this paragraph emphasize service. outside Washington,
D. C. We believe the latter is in`keeping with the basic
purpose and thrust of the program and we do not intend any
significant shift in the proportion of officers assigned to
the Congress under this program.
G.7. Question: The legislation also says that assignment to
a congressional office shall "emphasize service outside of
Washington, D. C." What do you mean by "emphasize?"
Answer: See Answer to Question G.6.
G.B. Question: Why does the legislation remove the minimum
time limitation for Pearson program participants?
Answer: The present law states "to the extent practical,
assignments shall be for at least 12 consecutive months . .
By its wording, this is not a binding requirement and we
thought it unnecessary to retain it in the revised statute.
We agree that 12 months is about the minimum period that
officers should be assigned under the Pearson program
and we do not plan any change in this regard.
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H.1 Question: Regarding selection out for substandard
performance, what provisions have you made to insure
this kind of selection out will be fairly applied and
will actually result in removal of personnel?
Answer: The proposed legislation would permit us
to apply to all categories of Foreign Service personnel
the system we now use for the selection out of Foreign
Service officers, or some close variant of it. In its
essentials this system would involve an annual review
of the cumulative performance of all employees by
Selection Boards made up of their higher ranking peers.
These boards would determine the relative standing of
each employee compared to all others in his or her
class and area of functional concentration on the basis
of performance reports provided by supervisors, Foreign
Service Inspectors, and other managers.
Those low-ranked (placed in the low 10 percent, for
example)--and not excused because of mitigating
circumstances, e.g., medical problems--would then be
reviewed by a separate panel of Foreign Service peers,
a Performance Standards Board. This panel would
determine whether or not the employee's performance,
viewed in a more absolute sense, fell significantly
below the standard established by his or her class.
This review would include the right of the employee
identified for selection out to request and receive
a due process hearing before the panel in which he
or she could be represented by counsel, could call
witnesses, and could introduce other material to
refute the evidence of substandard performance.
We believe this approach to selection out provides
ample guarantees of objectivity and fairness
to our employees. Application of the principles
described above, (i.e., relative ranking, multiple
reviews, due process hearing) during the past two
years has resulted in the separation of some 20
Foreign Service Officers. We believe, therefore,
that this selection out process has proven its
effectiveness in removing personnel whose performance
is clearly substandard.
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H.2. Question: Under what "merit principles"
will the system function?
Answer: The merit principles in this act
are the principles enunciated in the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978. They include
recruiting a work force from all segments
of society and selecting and advancing that
workforce on the basis of relative ability,
knowledge and skill after fair and open
competition which assures that all receive
equal opportunity. It further assumes that
all employees will be paid, trained and
retained without'regard to non-merit
factors.
H.3 Question: How will selection out for substandard
performance and time-in-class operate?
Answer: Selection out for substandard performance
is to be operated as described in the answer to
question H.1. Separation for excessive time-in-class
is addressed in the answer to question H.7.
H.4. Question: The bill as written would appear in
some instances to provide for a unified system for all
foreign affairs agencies, but through the promulgation
of regulations would appear to pave the way for some
major differences. For example, it would appear that
State could establish a three year "time-in-class" limit
on an FSO-3, while ICA could establish a five year limit
for an FSIO-3 and AID could establish an eight year limit
for a comparable position. Doesn't this situation have
the potential to create a bidding up process between
the agencies on time-in-class requirements?
Answer: The bill does permit diversity among
the foreign fairs agencies by regulation. There is
also a strong statutory mandate for uniformity (sections
1204 and 1205) and compatibility (sections 202 and 1203).
Significant differences between agencies would therefore
have to be reasonably based upon different requirements.
As indicated in the testimony of Director Reinhardt and
Acting Administrator Nooter, the potential for "bidding
up" time-in-class seems minimal.
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H.5. Question: With regard to selection board recom-
mendations concerning promotions, the draft legislation
gives the Secretary in "special circumstances" the
authority to remove an individual's name from a promotion
list submitted by the selection board. Can you give us
an example of such "special circumstances?"
Answer: This provision, which is in current law
for Foreign Service Officers (section 623(a) of the 1946
Act), is used, for example, for cases where a member of
the Service is under investigation for, or the subject of,
disciplinary proceedings. The selection board normally
would not know of such investigation or proceedings.
H.6 Question: What types of individuals will constitute
the selection boards which evaluate the Senior Foreign
Service?
Answer: The composition of selection boards in
general is addressed in the answer to question A.13.
The membership of the boards which review The Senior
Foreign Service will follow these same principles.
As was also pointed out in the answer to question
A.21, the quality, representativeness, and experience
of selection board members are key elements in the
wisdom and reliability of their decisions and
recommendations which are in turn, of vital importance
to the future of the Foreign Service. Therefore, the
Department will continue to place great emphasis on
obtaining superior members of the Foreign Service and
distinguished outside. representatives to staff these
selection boards.
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1052
H.7 Question: How will retirement for excessive time-
in-class operate?
Answer: Section 641(a) of the new legislation
provides that the Secretary shall prescribe regulations
specifying the maximum time in which members of the
Senior Foreign Service and Foreign Service Officers may
remain in a salary class or combination of classes
without a promotion. The Secretary may change such
time-in-class limitations as the needs of the Service
may require. Other categories of career Foreign
Service Officers may also be subject to time-in-class
limitations when designated by the Secretary. Time-in-
class regulations may distinguish among occupational
categories.
Since 641(a) continues the authority for retire-
ment based on excessive time-in-class for Foreign
Service Officers' provided in Section 633 of the
1946 Act. It expands this authority to cover career
personnel of the most senior rank, who were not
subject to time-in-class limitations under the 1946 Act.
It also authorizes coverage of other relatively senior
personnel to the extent the Secretary determines
advisable.
Section 641(c) provides that anyone who does not
receive a promotion or limited career extension provided
by 641(b) within an applicable time-in-class limitation
prescribed pursuant to Section 641(a) shall be retired
from the Service and shall receive retirement benefits
in accordance with Section 643. -
The purpose of separating employees for excessive
time-in-class lies at the heart of the up or out
personnel system. It is the method by which both
competition and attrition are maintained throughout
the Service so that Foreign Service officers may be
moved at the optimum rate through a series of jobs
and experiences which prepare them to fill the
Department's most responsible and difficult positions.
Time-in-class separation also improves the
overall excellence of the Service by removing those
members whose performance has peaked. Admitting the
utility of the above objectives, separation for
excessive time-in-class should not be invoked
mechanically and inflexably, unless there is clear
justification by the needs of the Service, when such
a practice would produce unduly harsh consequences for
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the individuals who have invested their futures in
the 'r'oreign Service. The Department intends to
follow its present practice of not immediately
separating any tenured employee for excessive
time-in-class who-is approaching eligibility for
a minimum immediate annuity under Section 643.
H.8 Question: Why do time-in-class regulations
distinguish among occupation categories?
Answer: As is explained in the answers to
questions A.33 and H.7, time-in-class regulations
are needed to maintain the attrition and competition
required in an up or out personnel system. This is
an essential element in the effective management of
the Foreign Service Officer Corps which must prepare
officers for the most difficult and responsible
positions in the Department of State and U.S. Missions
abroad.
However, time-in-class limits must be set with
regard to likelihood of promotion to the next class.
Since such promotion opportunities. differ, sometimes
considerably, from occupation to occupation, TIC
limits must also vary.
In addition, some career categories in the
Foreign Service are not premised on this up or out
model of preparing people for the top. Therefore,
there is no requirement to separate these employees
whose careers and skills are not directed towards
advancement to the most senior and responsible
positions in the Service, as long as they maintain
the standard of performance appropriate for their
job and their rank.
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H.9 Question: How will limited career extensions
operate? Doesn't this create a potential loophole,
if not administered closely, for individuals to be
retained in the Service when in fact the needs of.
the Service and their performances do not justify
it?
Answer: The limited career extension provisions
of Section 641(b) of the new legislation are
intended to provide maximum flexibility and efficiency
in the utilization of Senior Foreign Service personnel.
In keeping with this goal it is contemplated that
time-in-class limitations for senior personnel will be
shorter than present limits and would not exceed in the
Senior Foreign Service the five year maximum period for
limited career extensions.
Under Section 603 of the proposed legislation,
selection boards will make the recommendations for the
offer or renewal of limited career extensions. As is
the case with all selection board recommendations, these,
which will determine competitively to whom the limited .
career extensions are offered, must be based on criteria
which are developed by the Department's management in
consultation with the employee representative.
This process will make retention in the senior
ranks dependent on performance and the needs of the
Service. It is expected that the criteria, or precepts
for the selection boards, for granting limited career
extensions will establish the term of tenure at three
years, rather than the maximum five years permitted
in the Act, and will require that the selection boards
recommend using them only for those employees who
have demonstrated a strong ability and desire to
perform and for whom onward assignments are available.
Furthermore, these precepts may also require the
selection boards to weigh the performances of the
candidates for limited career extensions against each
other and against the performances of all the candidates
for promotion to the highest rank of the Service. To
qualify for a limited career extension would therefore
require performance that stood out among peers and was
also superior to that of-the officers at the next lower
level.
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Finally, the attrition needed in an up or out
system must be generated by some officers leaving
from the top. The Department's need for a
particular officer's services through the limited
career extension will be weighed against the system's
need for top-level attrition.
For these reasons, the procedures for offering
and granting the limited career extensions are
heavily weighed against using the mechanism to retain
officers, unless both their performance and the needs
of the Service strongly justify it.
I.1. Question: I note that few changes have been made
in the authorities relating to the Foreign Service
Institute, career development, training and orien-
tation. Do you view your current authorities as
sufficient?
Answer: We believe our current authorities, as
restated in the Bill, are sufficient. They have
servec the Department well for over three decades
with the scope and flexibility of-its'legislative
authority making for a viable training institution.
I.2. Question (a): Have these provisions been fully
implemented?
Answer: These authorities have been implemented,to
carry out the mission of the FSI.'
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Jl. Question: What is an Unhealthful post and what is the effect
of declaring a post "unhealthful"?
Authority
Under section 853 of the 1946 Act, provision is made for
the establishment of a list of posts to be classed as "unhealthful
posts." Each year of duty at such post is counted as one year
and one-half in establishing the length of service for the
purpose of retirement of Foreign Service employees of State,
AID, and ICA. No extra credit for service at an unhealthful
post is credited to any participant who is paid a hardship post
differential for service at that post.
Principal Features
1. Prior to 1955 all Foreign Service employees could receive
extra credit for retirement for service at designated "unhealthful"
posts, but some ("staff officers") could also elect the post
differential in lieu thereof. Public Law 22 of 1955 placed all
Department of State Foreign Service employees on an equal basis
regarding selection of the two benefits. In 1968, ICA employees
came under retirement provisions of the Foreign Service Act, as
did AID employees in 1973. All eligible employees of these
agencies may elect which benefit to receive; they may not receive
both at the same post.
2. Practically all unhealthful posts are differential posts,
but not all differential posts are unhealthful posts. ,
3. In general, credit toward retirement for service at the
differential post is important only to the employee who entered
the Service later than the average employee. Those employees
entering when relatively young find that they will have served the
required number of years without extra credit by the time they
reach retirement age.
Determination of List
The determination of a post as unhealthful is based upon data
received from the post and elsewhere, on sanitary conditions,
types and frequency of diseases, health controls, medical facilities,
etc.
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J2. Question: How often are posts added to or removed from the
"unhealthful" classification?
Review of unhealthful post status is made very two years
in connection with review of post differential (hardship)
status. As the conditions which comprise unhealthful considera-
tion (climate, sanitation and disease conditions, and medical
and hospital facilities) change slowly, there are very few
additions or cancellations to the list each year of existing
unhealthful posts. As AID or ICA (and occasionally State)
opens new posts in the hinterlands of developing countries,
several of these may be added to the unhealthful post list
each year as soon as data is submitted and analyzed.
J.3. Question: What is the rationale behind section 837
regarding retirement of former Presidential-appointees?
Answer: This provision is based on section 519 of the
1 Act, which presently applies only to chiefs of mission.
The bill extends to all similarly situated Presidential
appointees the provision for retirement at the termination
of their appointment. This.feature recognizes the special
difficulties that may be encountered in funding an appropri-
ate assignment for a former Presidential appointee and the
corresponding need for a dignified retirement mechanism
for such officers.
J.4. Question: What is the rationale behind new section
851(h) regarding payments by employing offices of the
Congress toward the retirement fund for Foreign Service
employees?
Answer: Foreign Service personnel who are employed
by the Congress while on leave without pay from the
Service now get up to six months free retirement credit
for each calendar year while they are on leave without
pay. This amendment would eliminate this windfall and
require Foreign Service employees and their employing
offices in the Congress to make regular employee and
employer contributions to the Foreign Service retirement
fund during employment by a congressional office while
in a leave without pay status from the Foreign Service.
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J.5. Question: Why have you'provided a credit toward retire-
ment rather than a post differential at unhealthful posts?
Answer: The unhealthful post credit has been a part
of the Foreign Service Retirement System since it was
established in 1924. A post differential (which is paid
in cash as a percentage of the member's salary) was not
made applicable to Foreign Service officers until 1955.
The post differential covers a variety of hardship condi-
tions in addition to unhealthfulness which exist at many
Foreign Service posts. At posts designated both as
unhealthful and as qualified for the post differential,
members may choose to receive either the extra retirement
credit or the cash differential, but not both.
Most members select to receive the cash differential
rather than the extra retirement credit. However, the
extra retirement credit is helpful for chiefs of mission
who under the Department's regulations are not eligible
for the post differential and senior officers who again
under the Department's regulations are not permitted to
receive post differential in an amount that would cause -
their total compensation to equal the salary of the chief
of mission in their country of assignment.
Continuation of both benefits will enable members
to continue to choose whichever one is most appropriate
for their personal circumstances.
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Question: What changes have been made in the Retire-
ment Disability System over current law?
Answer: Chapter 8 is a restatement of the existing
provisions of Title VIII of the 1946 Act concerning the
Foreign Service Retirement and Disability System. Chapter
8 incorporates revisions in Title VIII made by Executive
order to incorporate changes in the Civil Service Retirement
System made by recent laws when this was necessary to main-
tain comparability between the Foreign Service and Civil
Service Retirement Systems. Conforming changes previously
made by Executive order include several matters involving
survivor benefits, benefits for divorced spouses, and credit
for persons of Japanese ancestry interned by the United States
during World War II.
The only other substantive retirement changes intro-
duced in the bill are:
(1) The requirement in section 821(b)(2) that a
participant obtain the consent of his or her
spouse before electing to provide less than the
maximum survivor benefit in cases where the spouse
has resided with the member on assignments in the
Service including assignments abroad for an
aggregate period of 10 years or more; and
(2) The requirement for participants on leave
without pay from the Foreign Service employed
in a congressional office to make regular re-
tirement contributions to the Fund and. for their
employing offices to make matching contributions
has been added to eliminate windfall benefits
and is included in section 851(h).
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J.7. Question: Please explain the various administra-
tive ann judicial remedies contained in this
legislation for various purposes -- e.g.,
separation for cause, grievance procedures, selec-
tion-out, etc. How do they compare with the Civil
Service? Are the differences justified?
Answer: The Foreign Service Grievance Board has
Wee types of jurisdiction:
(1) over individual grievances of members
of the Foreign Service (Section 1101);
(2) over disputes between agency manage-
ment and an organization which is the ex-
clusive representative of that agency's Foreign
Service employees concerning the effect, interpre-
tation, or claim of breach of a collective bargain-
ing agreement (Section 1024); and
(3) to hold hearings for members of the
Service who are to be separated for cause (Sec-
tion 651(a)).
There is no statutory counterpart to the first
two for the Civil Service. Unions representing
Civil Service employees can negotiate individual
grievance systems through collective bargaining,.
and in the absence of such agreement the office of
Personnel Management provides a system by regula-
tion.
The Merit Systems Protection Board is the
statutory counterpart of the Foreign Service Griev-
ance Board for separation for cause (adverse action).
In addition, members of the Foreign Service in some
cases may now go both to the Foreign Service Griev-
ance Board and to the Merit Systems Protection Board
on alleged prohibited personnel practices. Section
1131 of the bill would require an election of
remedies in case of overlapping jurisdiction, to
avoid duplication. Apart from this election, the
Grievance Board, cannot take jurisdiction where
other legislation requires resort to another body.
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The Foreign Service Grievance Board is inde-
pendent of management, and over the years it has
been in existence has developed unique expertise
in the Foreign Service personnel system. Employees,
management and employee representatives are satisfied
with the way it operates. While the Board's role
in collective bargaining disputes and separation for
cause is new, the Board's expertise and experience
are expected to produce equally satisfactory results.
The Merit Systems Protection Board is also
independent of management, but it does not have
expertise with such unique features of the Foreign
Service as selection-out, selection boards, rank in
person, and the character of overseas assignments.
There are three other administrative remedies
provided by the bill:
(1) administrative review of the cases of.
members of the Service identified for possible
selection-out on the basis of relative performance
(section 642);
(2) the Foreign Service Labor Relations Board
(sections 1011, 1012 and 1024(b)); and
(3) the Foreign Service Impasse Disputes Panel
(section 1014).
The first of these has no counterpart in the Civil
Service because the Civil Service does not have selec-
tion-out. Under Federal District Court decision, this
review must have a number of due process safeguards;
section 642(a) in accordance with this decision re-
quires that this review include an opportunity for the
member to be heard.
The Foreign Service Labor Relations Board and the
Foreign Service Impasse Disputes Panel do have counter-
parts under the Civil Service Reform Act (5 U.S.C. 7104
and 7105, 5 U.S.C. 7119). We believe a different
system for the Foreign Service has proved its value
since 1972 under Executive Order 11636. The proposed
statutory basis provides the same independence from
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management as the Civil Service counterparts have,
but as a continuation of separate bodies charged
with responsibility for the Foreign Service only,
these bodies will have more expertise and be able
to move faster on urgent basis.
The bill also contains two special provisions
on judicial review. Section 1013 provides for
judicial review of orders of the Foreign Service
Labor Relations Board; it is similar to 5 U.S.C.
7123. Section 1141 provides for judicial review of
the decisions of the Foreign Service Grievance Board.
This latter provision is in existing law and is
broader than the provisions for civil service griev-
ances. Under the Civil.Service Reform Act judicial
review is limited to matters under the jurisdiction
of the Merit System Protection Board (50 U.S.C. 7703),
and includes review of arbitrator's decisions under
negotiated grievance procedures which could have
been brought to the Merit Systems Protection Board
(5 U.S.C. 7121(f)). As to the first, of course,
final orders of the Foreign Service Labor Relations
Board should be subject to the same judicial review
as are final orders of the Federal Labor Relations
Authority.
We believe that the different administrative and
judicial remedies contained in this bill for the
Foreign Service are justified by the differences
between it and the Civil Service.
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K.1. Question: The bill before us authorizes representational
allowances only for Foreign Service officers. Have you
considered authorizing such allowances for consular agents
where appropriate since at least some of these agents
perform representational functions?
Answer: The bill does not-restrict reimbursement of
representational expenses to Foreign Service officers.
Section 931 authorizes reimbursement, under regulations to
be prescribed by the Secretary, to any member of the
Service authorized to undertake representational responsi-
bilities. To the extent that consular agents are authorized
to undertake representational responsibilities, the Depart-
ment will attempt, to obtain funds under the authority of
this bill to provide reimbursement. (See also response
to Question E.7.(S).)
Ll. Question: What are the differences between
t e right of employees to organize under the
current Executive order and-the rights articulated.
in the legislation?
Answer: There are no differences between, the
Executive order and the legislation with regard
to employees' right to organize. Employees will
continue to have the basic right to form, join or
assist any labor organization as to refrain from.
any such activity.
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M.1. Question: What is the proposed composition of
Foreign Service Grievance Boards? What are the
components of the grievance and appeals procedures?
How will the Merit Systems Protection Board operate?
Answer: Section 1111(a) provides that the Board
shall consist of not fewer than five members who are
not presently serving as officers, employees or
consultants of the Department or as members of the
Service. This is the same provision as appears in
the existing legislation. At present, there are 15
members of the Board -- eight professional arbitra-
tors and seven retired Foreign Service personnel.
It is contemplated that the Board composition would
continue to remain approximately the same. Under
section 2104(d) of the Bill, present members of the
Board may continue to serve without reappointment.
The grievance procedure, as presently consti-
tuted and as provided for in the proposed legislation,
consists of an at least two-stage procedure. Certain
types of complaints (e.g., about working conditions)
are dealt with initially at the lowest levels of the
post abroad or in the bureau in the Department. If
they cannot be resolved at the post or bureau level,
they are considered at the agency (State, AID, USICA)
level. Certain other types of complaints (e.g., about
evaluation reports in the employee's performance file)
are not susceptible of resolution at lower levels and
are dealt with initially at the agency level. In
either case, an employee who is not satisfied with
the agency level decision on his grievance, may take
his or her grievance to the Foreign Service Grievance
Board. Cases before the Board are considered by a
panel of three members, with or without a hearing,
with submissions being made by the grievant and the
agency. If a hearing is held, witnesses are sworn,
subject to examination and cross examination, and a
verbatim transcript is made. The Board isses written
decisions with any appropriate remedial orders or
recommendations to the agency. Section 1141 provides
for judicial review in the U.S. district court, at
the instance of either the grievant or the agency,
of decisions of the Grievance Board.
In large measure, employees of State, AID and
USICA are subject to the provisions of the Civil
Service Reform Act relating to the Merit Systems
Protection Board. The bill permits.an employee
to elect between the Merit Systems Protection Board
and the Foreign Service Grievance Board in cases
of overlapping jurisdiction.
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Nl. Questions: Will you maintain the designation of certain posts
as hardship posts? For what purposes?
Answer: Yes, the Department will maintain the designation of
certain posts as hardship posts.
The post differential is authorized under Title 5 U.S.C.
5925 and is not restricted to Department of State overseas posts.
Overseas posts operated by the Air Force, Army, Navy, Agriculture,
Commerce, Interior, NASA, and Peace Corps have been designated
as hardship posts. The differential payment is made to all
civilian government personnel at a post if eligible.
The purpose and principal features are as follows:
1. The post differential is additional compensation paid
to employees assigned to posts where extraordinarily difficult
or notably unhealthful conditions, or excessive physical hardship
exist.
2. The post differential serves as an incentive in
recruiting and retaining personnel for locations where unusual
hardship conditions exist.
3. The post differential is authorized only at.those posts
where the degree of hardship is in excess of that which employees
are expected to disregard as part of the self-sacrifice necessarily
involved in overseas service.
4. More than half of the posts in foreign areas have no
post differential. A large number of posts having considerable
hardship conditions do not receive post differential.
5. The post differential is subject to tax as a part of
gross income (allowances are not taxable).
6. Owing to the 25 percent limitations, there is a wide
range of hardship conditions existing at those posts where a
25 percent post differential is established.
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